


Resident Evil: Darkened Sky

by TheLadyFrost



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Gen, Multi, Mutated werewolves, Other, Shameless Smut, Vampires, Violence, Virology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2018-12-21 20:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 82,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11952363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyFrost/pseuds/TheLadyFrost
Summary: He's had the dreams all his life. Where are they leading him? In his quest to find the answers, he finds her. In her, he finds the truth. And something in the darkness beckons.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an ongoing fun tale. It's fighting and mythology and fun and smut. It's a lot of fun to write.

Chapter 1:

Boy meets Girl

"The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire."

― Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark

Sri Lanka, ඉරණම (The Destiny Resort)

The water was green. It was pearlescent with its nearly flawless foamy waves that touched the toes and tantalized the senses. Green was such a plain word, such a useless word. Strange how there hadn't yet been a word to describe the beauty of the ocean. Not one that did it justice.

It was mostly empty this time in the morning. He wiggled his toes in that warm sea foam water and sipped his drink. He was on vacation; he was entitled to a drink at 7 am. He wasn't a drunk. He may well be by the end of the day if he kept it up and for the first time in years, he was okay with that too.

The expensive scotch tasted like what the water felt like; heaven. It had been a long time since he'd been this relaxed. He wanted to stay here forever. Part of him knew that was stupid and spoke long about the boy who still waited inside him for his turn to return. That boy had died in Raccoon City…no…not died. That boy had gone to sleep in Raccoon City. He was just waiting to wake up again.

He scanned the line of sand and water. The resort he'd chosen was lovely. It consisted of a club house and a smattering of private beach "shanties" along the shore of a private portion of beach. Sri Lanka wasn't nearly as traveled as some touristy spots. The rocky republic climate kept most of the family types away. And the language barrier could be vast here. English wasn't a second language here, it may well be a fifteenth. Those who didn't speak Sinhala, the native tongue, might find themselves struggling to enjoy their visit.

Luckily he was fluent in most languages. He struggled a bit with the Swahili sects of southern Africa. But he was coming along there as well.

A few beach goers were out hunting shells and taking in the beauty of the morning. It looked like rain about four kliks out over the ocean. He figured there would be a down pour by days end at the rate of the wind and movement. And he hated that even here, in this moment, he couldn't shake his training. He was aware that he could run flat out without much trouble at this altitude and humidity. He was aware that his hut was thirty five yards from the nearest main road and that that road was forty two minutes on foot from the closest access point. He was aware that it was a very, very hard swim to the nearest port for commuting if he had to flee into the water. He was aware the bar tender had some martial arts training and kept a shot gun beneath the bar for trouble. He was aware the couple down the beach were slightly drunk from the night before and that the man could handle himself in a fight. He was aware that it would take emergency services twelve minutes to arrive on scene in case they were needed.

And he just wanted to enjoy the fucking water for five seconds.

He scrubbed a hand over his face and pushed it back through his hair. The perfect cut of it settled back over his features with all the grace of good genes and a great stylist. He was blonde and thirty five, his body was disciplined into perfection and strength, from the cut of his abs to the swell of muscle in his biceps. The eyes beneath the hair were blue with a gray undertone, light, pale and pretty with a shock of thick dark lashes above a perfect patrician nose gifted from generations of great breeding. He was handsome, movie star so, and from multiple generations of good family money.

And he was a killer.

Natural really. He'd tested higher on all the evaluations then any spy in the last decade. He'd be a cop for one day and a killer for the last thirteen years. He'd seen and done and lived things that haunted his sleep, that ruled his dreams, that raped across his conscience in a nearly painful way. And this was his first break from it in years.

It didn't seem likely. It would take some kind of miracle to get his mind off the shit he'd seen.

She came out of the water like a goddess in some kind of brilliant man's idea of a bathing suit. It was a couple of white squares covering all the right –and wrong- places and slim braided bracelet around her wrists with tiny white conch shells. She was toned, tanned, taut and beautiful. Her dark hair streamed around her as she moved and water gilded her like a siren sent from the sea to steal his soul.

He watched her move to the beach bar and order a drink. And he wasn't the only one having one at 7 am.

He made a gesture to the waiter as he was moving toward her to serve it where she'd taken up lounging now on a towel about twenty yards away. The waiter stopped and smiled.

"My tab," He told him, "And anything else she wants."

The waiter smiled conspiratorially and moved off to serve the drink. Something fruity with a lime on the glass. The woman lifted a brow, smiled, spoke to the waiter with curiosity and then looked over toward him.

Their eyes met, held, she lifted her drink in a salute and he gestured back.

He rose and moved toward her. She patted the edge of her towel and down he went, sitting beside her in the shimmering white sand.

She'd slipped on a pair of Gucci sunglasses in red. They were cute, square, and highlighted her perfect jaw. But the eyes had been blue.

She studied him, shifting in the sand.

Handsome. Very handsome. And very, very interesting.

She hadn't considered a romance while she was here. It was brief, her stay, and very selfish. She didn't have the time and shouldn't waste what she did have here. But she couldn't resist. A few days away had been impossible to refuse.

She wondered if they'd even exchange names.

"Thank you for the drink," She spoke the language flawlessy but something in her accent told him that she was…

"American," And he was surprised how delightful that was. So he spoke to her in English. "You're American."

"You too." She was surprised and curious. "I thought I was the only one who knew about this diamond in the rough."

"Looks like there's two of us." He liked looking at her and it had been a long time since he'd liked looking at a woman. "Business or pleasure?"

She smiled. "Pleasure. Hopefully lots of it."

"Hopefully for both of us." He considered, weighed the risk, and lied. "I'm Ross."

She considered, weighed the risk, and lied. "I'm Rachel."

He laughed and so did she. "Maybe I should have said I was Chandler."

She laughed again, so easy. And realized she liked him. He was funny. And she liked funny. Funny and handsome, clearly with good taste –the Oakley sunglasses he wore were expensive – so she shifted a little more toward him.

He was dressed for swimming in a pair of blue trunks with a white button down shirt left open over his flawless chest. The shirt was Boss and fantastic quality linen. The trunks were Nautica and clearly meant for swimming with a purpose instead of recreational. He was honed, healthy, and very fit. It was clearly he took care of himself.

"Do you wear sweater vests all the time?"

He laughed, charmed by her. "What if I said yes?"

"I don't think my heart could take it. I much prefer picturing you as James Bond…" She studied him closer. "Or Indiana Jones."

"I do have a fondness for whips."

"What about hunting for ancient shit?"

"I'm the oldest thing on this beach, doll."

She laughed again. She figured they were about the same age actually. Old enough to know better but young enough to do it anyway.

"I could be your Laura Croft."

He smirked. "Oh definitely. Although I haven't heard the british accent to be sure."

She affected a perfect English accent. "I'm a bit of a bloody chameleon."

Impressed he arched a brow. And affected his own. "Maybe ours is a Sherlock and Watson relationship."

"You mean quasisexual homoerotic?"

And he laughed again. "I don't think there's anything quasi about it. I'm still hoping for the sexual."

She liked the lines at the corner of his eyes when he smiled. She leaned over and slid his sunglasses down his nose to see the rest. And shouldn't have been impressed but she was. Husky eyes. Sharp, bright, the gray blue of a winter a sky before a storm. He was nearly painfully handsome.

Once upon a time he'd have been a complete waste of her time. Handsome, charming, intelligent, athletic men often were terrible in bed. They felt their good looks excused them from being good at it. But she was betting he was going to live up to his packaging.

"You sure you're not Joey under it all?"

He smiled at her…or leered and turned on a pretty decent Italian by way of Brooklyn accent. "How you doin?"

"Nope." She laughed. "Definitely Chandler."

"Maybe I should be insulted by that."

She rose.

"Actually I always wondered what would happen with Rachel and Chandler without that idiot Ross in the way."

He studied her from the ground.

"Want to find out?"

And he rose, bringing his drink with him.

She lead him down the shore to her shanty. It was elegant in a laid back beach bum kind of way. It had shabby chic qualities one expected in a resort without all the modern trappings one might want from something high end. The furniture was whicker, the plumbing adequate, the ceiling fan that made up the only cooling agent –save for the sea air- was etched bronze leaves.

She placed her drink on the eat at ar that made up the only dining in the tiny kitchen and turned toward him.

He caught her under the arm pits and lifted her, setting her on the bar. Her hands pushed the shirt from his shoulders with a whisper of expensive cloth. Their mouths met, wet and hungry, needy and nearly desperate. It was a good kiss, passionate and pure in the sheer lust of it.

He cupped her face in his hands and tilted her into his mouth, showing her that he knew exactly what he was doing here. Any bumbling idiot could fuck a girl but kissing…that took skill. Sitting on the bar she was slightly above him, she wrapped her ankles behind his ass and tugged him closer into her.

Her wet skin slid against the warmth of him and made her hum into his questing mouth. She knifed her fingers into his hair, loving the silkiness of it against the skin. He could taste the sea on her, a heady, powerful saltiness that spurred the blood with madness.

His hands tugged the ties of that tiny swimsuit and he freed her from it, tossing it away. His hands filled themselves with her breasts, full and soft and inviting. She was busty and lusty and wonderful and he felt himself start to drown in the taste of her and his need to have her.

For the first time in a long time, he forgot to do anything but want.

He skimmed his hands up her back and back down, hooking them under her ass to lift her. She clung to him as he carried her effortlessly to the bed and dropped her on it. She laughed with pleasure at the artlessness of it and welcomed him atop her with open arms.

He bracketed her hands above her head, dropping his mouth to her neck, to the top of her collarbone. He feathered kisses over the crests of her breasts, running his tongue in lazy circles over the pretty pink nipples until they peaked with pleasure. He circled his way down to her belly button and nipped playfully at her through the swimming suit bottoms.

She gasped with pleasure and shifted her hips toward him. Her hands stayed in place above her head as he peeled them off her, slowly, sculpting her legs with his hands as did. She shimmered under him, vibrating with need. And he pressed his mouth to her, delighting in the taste of woman, in the hunger that thrummed and threatened to choke him. He had to have her. Needed her. Greed for her in a way that had no name…somewhat like the color of the ocean.

She should have known he'd be good with his tongue. Of course he would be. Didn't he kiss like he'd been born to do it? She felt the snap inside of her before he'd barely begun and let the orgasm rob her of her sanity. She cried out, clutching the sheets beneath her hands as her hips jerked up toward him as if her body was begging him to take more.

He was masterful, taunting. He worked her like he'd been paid to do it. He kneaded and she needed. He tasted and she hungered. He took and she gave until she thought she'd die from it. She felt her body bow, begging.

He found himself wanting her to say his name. His real name. And he felt a little panic at the idea. To hide it, he destroyed her. He slid his fingers into the wealth of her, loving the feel of her, hot and wet. She rode him, gasping, desperate.

Her greedy fingers pulled his trunks from him as he rose back up her body. They kissed and the taste of her was heady between them. She rolled him beneath her and mirrored what he'd done, her tongue and teeth marked him, stole his breath. He sat up with her on his lap, pulling her tightly to him to take her mouth in a kiss that rolled tongues, robbed brains.

Her hands memorized him, molding his flesh to her fingers like a sculptor with the perfect clay. She slid hers over his stomach and found him hard, hungry, and perfect. It was almost ridiculous for a man to be sculpted so beautifully from head to toe. She flicked a thumb over the moist tip of him, teasing.

He surged against her hand and she cupped his face, arching above him to watch his expression. Eyes closed, lips parted, he wasn't just handsome…he was perfection. An angels face. The face one would hunger to paint and leave forever in oils on a canvas. It was the face of temptation and redemption and obsession.

She felt like she'd never wanted another man more in her life.

She shifted, lifted. And he caught and held her.

"Do you have anything?"

She tried to make sense of the question in the haze of euphoria surrounding them.

"What? Like…diseases? No I'm clean."

He laughed a little desperately as her hands cupped and rolled him, teased him. He thought he'd die right there. "I meant protection. Do you have anything?"

They kissed again, long, torturous. He rolled her now beneath him and rubbed himself against her body. It was like throwing gasoline on a fire. He felt the pressure building in his groin until it would probably explode and kill them both. He had to be inside her.

Desperately, she roused enough to grab his face. "Stop being such a gentleman."

He laughed, thickly. He was that. Had always been that. And almost hated himself for it.

They kissed again, thick and slow. He lifted himself off of her with more than a little regret.

She lay on the bed, waiting. And it took a long moment to realize he wasn't coming back.

"Is it me?"

He glanced at her. Beautiful, naked, pinked from his caress and wanted to throw himself on her, spread her open and fill her with himself until he couldn't move.

"It's you. Yes. Entirely you."

Horrified, she started to cover herself up. And he caught her hand, tugged her to her knees. She fell against him and couldn't draw a breath as he kissed her.

"Stay here. Wait. I will be back in…seconds. Less."

"Where are you going?"

"Protection."

She laughed, delighted by him. "Seriously?"

"My Mama raised me to protect the ladies."

She slid her hands over his hips and down his ass. He shivered.

"The closest place to get anything is town. Looooong way from town. Too long."

He drew her in and kissed her again. And again. And again.

Somehow he was atop her again. They rolled and she arched. His hand cupped her, he slid two fingers into her and she made a sound that nearly forced him to go right there.

He bracketed her hands again and used his fingers to do what his body wanted, he fucked her. Almost torturously, he fingered her, deep, fast. She felt her vision blur.

She let the orgasm burst through her this time like a tornado. She arched, gasping, thrashing a bit with it as her muscles spasmed, seized, and dumped her into oblivion in a wet and facile ride. When he started to draw away again she grasped him and rolled.

He tried to put a hand between them to stop her but she pushed his arms over his head and held him down. Surprised, he tested her. She was stronger than she looked. He had to push with a good deal of strength to move his arms.

"Stop me." She taunted it, kissing his mouth, gently biting now. He strained his neck to kiss her back but she shook her head. "Can you? Stop me?"

She slid herself over him, wet, taunting. He should, he knew, a good guy didn't bare back a girl he just met on the beach. It's how you ended up with a squalling baby or an itchy dick. It was stupid. It was impulsive. And he was neither.

And he had never wanted to be both more in his life.

She shifted and he thrust himself into her. Surprised, she released his hands and grabbed his shoulders to lean up. She was glorious and he slid completely over him, sheathing him inside her. They groaned together now, complete.

His hands grabbed her hips and ground her against him. She arched, gasping, and rode him. It was smooth, fluid, it was fast and faster now. Desperate, she used her strong thighs to take him and hold him and milk him.

He shifted and rolled her beneath him. Their hands joined above her head, he leaned away enough to watch himself plow into her. She watched the line of his chest and felt the thrill of his body shoving into her again, again. He met her eyes, held them, and rode her now.

He rode her like he'd push through her and come out the other side. She couldn't look away. Her eyes stayed locked on his, almost trapped. The pleasure arched between them, sparking into nearly painful waves. She locked her fingers with his and held on.

The storm burst over them in a wave of desperate and endless greed. She cried out and locked her legs around his waist, feeling the plunge and plunge and plunge of him with an almost murderous glee. Don't stop, she thought, Don't. I'll die.

He kissed her, once, wet and slow. And she felt herself fall into those eye, fall, and couldn't remember anything but gray and blue and greed. She shuddered, ripped apart by the orgasm this time as if a hand had spread its fingers inside her and burst her open. He ground himself against her as she came, forcing her to take him as he deep as she could. She felt him reach the end of her and try to go farther. Just as it was almost too much, almost too painful, he pulled out of her.

With a gasp, she felt his absence like a punch to the gut.

He was shuddering on the bed beside her now, staring up at the ceiling.

"You didn't go?" She said, softly.

"Too much of a fucking gentlemen."

She rolled over until she was over him now and impaled herself on him. He jerked, surprised, she forced his hands back down and rode, slow, slow, hungry.

"I'm not." She said softly. And their eyes caught again. "I'm no lady at all."

She forced his body into a nearly manic pace now. She felt the sweat, heard the gasping, felt herself up, down, up, down. She took everything he had until their skin was so thick with sweat it was a wonder they didn't simply slide apart from it.

He struggled a little as he approached his own release. She saw it in the tension in his body, in the panic of his eyes. And she loved it. Loved that torture. It made her hot in ways she couldn't begin to describe. She got the feeling he was a man who was always in control. Always. Utter, ridged, complete control of himself, of his situation, of his reponse.

She held him down, fucking him. "Stop me."

The pleasure on his face was mixed with an almost pain. He pushed himself up into her, again, again.

She licked his lips now and sunk into that mouth in a bone numbing kiss.

Their eyes held.

She went very still, very quickly atop him.

"Tell me to stop."

"No."

"Living dangerously here."

"Only way to do it."

They kissed again. She leaned back to look down at him.

"Such power. Why do I want so badly to take it from you?"

Amused, aroused, with thunder in his blood, he met those eyes of hers. "Think you can?"

"Oh I know I can."

"Prove it."

It was the most dangerous thing he'd ever done. He'd done shit that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He had no regrets. But if he didn't do this, do her, do it now he'd regret it forever.

She proved it. She rose up to arch above him, her hands released his to grab his thighs as she leaned back and rode, rode, rode. Her taut, toned body didn't quit. She was a machine, a goddess, yes, a goddess. She was a siren after all calling to him to come to her, to come in her, to come for her.

He slid a hand up her toned stomach, between her flushed and beautiful breasts. His hand slid around the base of her throat and squeezed. Surprised, her eyes flew open. His other arm wrapped around her hips and held her there as he shoved himself inside her.

There was no rhythm now, just flesh, fast and furious. The meaty melding of skin and sweat and souls. He flipped her onto her back and held her down with that hand around her throat. Not choking, just holding her there. He hammered himself into her nearly punishing her, punishing them both for it. For all of it.

Her legs came up and wrapped around his flanks, she held him there, against her. The taste of her mouth, the smell of her – he allowed it to finally, finally, blissfully surround him until he was lost. He was lost in her, in this moment, and he buried himself in her and let go.

….

The rain came and brought the wind with it. They lay together listening to the wash and rush of it on the thatched roof of the shanty. It was a good storm – strong but not threatening. She circled her finger over his nipple listening to the rhythmic thump of drops above them.

The sheets were tangled in tantalizing ways along his body, wrapped around knee and calve. Her thigh was draped over his groin, carefully concealing the wonderous sight below. He really was beautifully made. It was almost comic how wonderful he was. Slim and fit like a runner or a swimmer or a greek god of speed and agility. She regretted that this time would eventually come to an end.

"Are you hungry?"

She rose to look down into his face. He was smiling at her as she studied him.

He scooped her bangs back to look into those eyes. Gorgeous. She was simply gorgeous. The face was classic beauty. With pouty lips and up turned blue eyes. Her brows arched lovely and perfect. She had a tiny scar at the corner of one eye. He touched it now, gently.

"I'm hungry," He replied and rolled over to kiss her.

There was a difference here in this kiss. It was delicate, questing. He was tasting her, yes, but he was tasting more than her mouth. He was learning her now, taking the breath from her with the intimacy of it. She slid her hands up his back to hold him to her. He cupped her face to deepen the kiss.

He leaned away to smile at her.

"Let me take you to dinner."

"In this rain?"

He laughed a little. "So let me cook you dinner."

"I might have an egg."

He rose and put on his trunks, much to her disappointment.

"Ok. So we go out, in the rain. Say yes."

"I would love to."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He slipped on his shirt and glanced out the door into the pouring rain. "I'm about two hundred yards down the beach here. Wait here. I'll go change and come pick you up. Half an hour?"

"Great."

He scooped her up, sheets and all into his arms. She clung to him as they kissed goodbye. And she felt…something…in her belly that delighted her.

He laid her gently back down. "Shame to get dressed, really. But you won't be dressed for long."

He disappeared out the door into the rain.

She lay there smiling for a long moment and then rose to dress. She hadn't brought much with her. Just the little summer dress in pale green and her strappy cork sandals she'd bought at a gift shop. She slid on both after a quick shower. She bound her hair at the back of her neck with a ribbon and skipped the make up. He'd seen the show, no reason to over due it.

She expected a honk to signal his arrival but he popped back into the shanty instead.

He was in a pair of light weight beach khakis topped by a collared shirt in baby blue. It was loose weight again, probably Armani, and left open a few buttons at the collar to be casual. He wore a casual pair of sandals that looked like they might cost a month of rent in New York.

He pulled her into his arms. "You look beautiful."

"Thank you."

They dined in Kandy near the Temple of Tooth. The Buddhist influence could be felt in every corner of the small village. Kandy was the last capital of the Sri Lankan kings, it was popular for Buddhists to come and pray in the temple. The heritage of generations remained in the peaks and towers and the culture of those who worked and lived there.

There was serenity to the Buddhist lifestyle, a simplicity. It could be found in the preservation of history and in the faces of children still playing together instead of playing on their phones. The monorail ran the length of the city, providing views of rolling green hills and wide open spaces. He never wanted to leave while he was here.

She was his type of woman in more ways than one. She loved curry and they shared the mutton and rice with equal interest and joy. The wattalappam was delicious, delighting the palate and ensnaring the senses. Delicate – it took a certain set of taste buds to appreciate the egg pudding.

It was still raining when he tugged her out to dance. The warm wash on the skin was magical. And she was charmed, more than charmed, she was sort of afraid she would start to crave him. The music was beautiful – played by musicians under a tent on oboes and flutes, drums called gata beras and singing – drifted through the air.

The romance of it wasn't lost on her or him. Instead they embraced it. It swelled up and seemed to form a bubble around them.

He kissed her in the rain, slow and steady.

She watched water drip off his eye lashes and opened her mouth to say something sweet. He swept her up and over his shoulder.

She had a handful of moments to figure out what he was going to do.

"NO!"

And he waded into the churning and cold ocean and dropped her.

She came up sputtering, laughing.

"You son of a bitch!"

He was on the shore, shedding his clothes. She did the same and they swam into the water now, naked and blissful.

Like playful otters they rolled together and kissed, hands slipping on slick and sweet flesh. He loved her in the water, the rush of salt and spray surrounded them. The rain peppered their skin cool and fragrant and the rumble of thunder spurred them forward.

They wore their damp clothes back to his shanty.

She didn't get far inside the door before he caught her. They clung as he lifted her against him and carried her across the room into the bathroom. He slid the dress from her with little effort and the rush of warm water filled the room.

He pressed her against the wall of the shower as the soft water rushed over their salty skin. She pushed her hands into his hair and kissed him.

He watched her in the brush of the water, scooping her hair off her face. Something low in her belly tightened.

"Where have you been all my life?" He asked now and the wonder in his voice made her heart ache.

And she wanted to tell him her name. For the first time in a long time, she wanted that. She wanted that honesty. But instead she drew him to her and took his mouth again.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Truth

".A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

― Charles Spurgeon

The darkness rises, tendrils of black, curls of smoky death. He watches it creep along the cobblestones at his feet, over the toes of his fashionable loafers. Although, he isn't sure when he's ever worn loafers before.

He knows it's a dream, knows it can't possibly be real. He's had these kind of dreams his whole life. This isn't the first and won't be the last. These dreams, these visions are a gift and a curse. It's in the blood, he can't fight it. But he'd give almost anything to be normal.

The darkness loops around his ankle, creeps over the hem of his black slacks. He can't shift his foot, can't move away. He can only watch it rise. Something inside of him feels defeated. It's not really fear; it's more like numb acceptance. He's so tired. He's fought so long. He just wants to rest now. Just rest and give in.

There's a scream in the distance, so soft that at first, he thinks it's merely the wind through the tree tops. But it comes again, louder this time, closer. The scream is full of rage, of fear, of despair. And he knows that voice. He knows it.

He shakes his leg, shakes his body, shakes his soul and the darkness recedes, hissing. It doesn't want to be denied its ultimate prize. The screaming is louder now almost as if it's just out of his sight.

He begins to run even as part of him fears he will be too late. The darkness follows, close, closer, just at his heels. He feels trapped between fear and courage. Which will save him? Which will save them both?

He stops in the middle of the street and the darkness halts, pulsing.

He opens his mouth and screams out a name.

The darkness echoes, shrieking

…

Somewhere in the Mylan Jungle…

The crunch of his boots beneath him was sometimes the only thing that made him realize he was alive. He was bathed in sweat, the stench of his own flesh having long since eradicated any other scent. It was cloying, filling his nostrils with noxious glee.

He couldn't even remember when he'd arrived anymore. Months, weeks, days; it was all a blur. The thunder of his own heartbeat was loud in his ears.

Huts lingered around him, some thatched, some brick. Most were downtrodden, bringing to life their third world roots in the falling in roofs and slightly oppressive road he traveled, mostly dirt, was devoid of presence. Not a single person, not a single form of life; save for the swaying branches of the trees above his head.

The heat was a pressing, liquid hand. It rested on his chest and tried to steal the air from his lungs. His hair was matted to his forehead and god knew what was playing in the sweat along his spine. His jaw was thick with whiskers, giving him what had to be a man of the mountain look.

He was bleeding. From scrapes, from bruises, from bites that he'd scratched raw. The bugs in the jungle were the size of horse flies. And while you slept, fitfully, dreaming of peace, they ate the flesh from your bones.

He could have given up. Could have gone home. But Chris Redfield was a man on a mission.

Because somewhere in this jungle were answers he'd been hunting for a long time. Too long.

He'd find them. Or die trying.

….

The Mylan Jungle – Provence of Port de Brumel

She'd left while he'd been sleeping. He'd awoken to find her gone.

He'd known he would but it didn't take the regret like ashes from his mouth. But she'd left that little sea shell bracelet on the sink in the bathroom. And he had it now, in his pocket, like some kind of luck charm. He rubbed the smooth shells like a child with a woobie.

And wished he'd been able to touch her just one more time.

Instead he was here, in the jungle, looking for Chris Redfield. The BSAA was sending their own attachment to meet him in the village of Vylamar but he was out here in the mean time doing some leg work.

He crouched over the body, the eyes had long since gone dead; the body itself having begun to decay in a way that left the senses reeling in disgust. He'd smelled worse. Hell, he'd seen worse. He'd stared death in the face and fucked it's still bleeding skull.

But this body hadn't just died. It had burst, seemingly like an exploded balloon, spilling guts and blood and filth over the bamboo strewn ground beneath his boots. It looked like Joe Jarhead had swallowed a grenade and suffered a bad case of indigestion. The outfit was standard issue Marines, white, white, white. Or it had started life white. Now it was brown and crusty and filthy with fluids he didn't even want to guess at.

Gloved fingers divested the body of its identification. The weapons the man had been wearing were already lost to prying hands.

It was a shot in the dark to hope the man knew Redfield.

The driver's license claimed the corpse belonged to a William Langtree. A shot in the dark that hadn't paid off. But Leon Kennedy pocketed the wallet, intending to return it to the States and to poor Langtree's relations.

The heat here was ridiculous, it pressed down on his chest and lungs like a wet blanket made of steel. He rose, resplendent in black fatigues. Kevlar vest over black nylon shirt, cargo pants, and boots. The black held sweat like a sponge, but at least the sweat kept his body hydrated. Even if it was with its own wasted salt. The trick of salty liquid would confuse his nervous system for awhile, convincing his body he wasn't suffering from heat stroke.

He drew a bottle of water from the pocket of his pants, sipping delicately.

His brow was soaked in sweat, his hair plastered wetly to his head. He wasn't going to be winning any contests for beauty in next twenty four hours, but if intelligence paid off, he'd be leaving with a fugitive.

Redfield had gone AWOL from the BSAA. The suspicion was pure PTSD or possible psychosis. He was out hunting up his demons or looking under rocks for conspiracy about what had happened to his men. The story was murky on what had happened. Leon wasn't sure anyone but Chris knew.

Leon wasn't a fool. He knew the man he was tracking was the brother of the woman he'd survived Raccoon with. He knew, it was likely, that Redfield wasn't a bad man. But the government had him listed as high priority. He knew something. Something they desperately wanted to know. And they needed him home to find out.

Redfield had left little signs but enough that Leon wandered if he'd been deliberately allowing himself to be tracked. He was setting up an elaborate trail, pieces here and there. A fingerprint, a follicle of hair, a forgotten pair of pants; just little things that any normal person might have forgotten to dispose of behind themselves. But Redfield hadn't gotten into S.T.A.R.S. for being normal.

He was better than that. He'd wanted them to find him.

Three months prior, he'd stopped running. They'd tracked him to the Mylan Jungle in the outskirts of the middle of nowhere. The jungle itself was one of the last surviving pieces of uncivilized beauty. It was inhabited. Mostly tribes and a few obscure scientists studying the wildlife. But there were no McDonald's, no Starbucks, no paved roads. Everything was dirt, and grass, and biblically simple.

Leon glanced through the curving, curling trees lining the jungle around him. He hadn't seen daylight without the cover of foliage in days.

His boots crunched, over twigs and bamboo and something worse.

He made his way through the sun dappled heat, listening to the cry of animals he couldn't even begin to guess at. The shifting of branches beneath paws that likely waited to tear his head from his shoulders.

Leon stopped, listening, as something moved off in the underbrush to his left.

His hand moved, slowly, tugged the gun from the holster on his thigh. He wasn't sure why, but every alarm in his head was going off. Maybe it was Raccoon City, maybe it was dancing with los plagas, maybe it was everything, but he was waiting for something horrible to explode out of those bushes and go for his throat.

There was a click of a gun behind him. "Don't. Don't do it cowboy, don't."

Leon froze, the gun extended out to the side. "Take it easy."

"Drop it, hot shot."

He did. He let it fall and heard it crackle into the bamboo at his feet.

"Redfield?"

"Who?"

That didn't mean anything. The man could have been playing stupid.

Leon lifted his hand, showing it empty. "I'm gonna turn around."

"Do that and I'll blow your fucking head off."

"Take it easy, guy. Just relax. I'm unarmed."

"Bullshit. You got a knife bigger then my fucking forearm strapped to the front of that pretty vest. What you're gonna do, is very slowly take the vest off and drop it."

Leon frowned. The man couldn't be Redfield. Redfield wouldn't have been that stupid. Letting Leon lift his hands wasn't smart. For all he knew Leon had a subsequent gun strapped to his stomach beneath the vest. It was suicide to allow his hands to move out of sight.

Leon shrugged, moving his hands to the latches on the vest.

Slowly, ass wipe. Slowly."

"Sure." Leon unlatched the first strap, moved to undo the second. "I'm not here for you man. I don't even know you. Do yourself a favor and run. I won't stop you."

"You're a fucking idiot man. An idiot. Do you even KNOW what's out here? I'm not leaving without that vest, that gun, and everything else you got strapped on your pretty person."

Leon frowned again. Fear. He could smell it. It came off the other man in palpable waves.

"Sure, guy. No problem." Leon undid the last strap and let the vest fall. Even as it fell he pulled the knife from its sheath.

He was down and spinning even as the first shot sounded. It whizzed, nicking his ear and screaming off into the jungle beyond him.

A bird sounded, peppering the air with a warbling cry.

The man dropped to his knees. His chest was pumping blood from the knife sticking out of his torso like an arrow.

"Fuck." He was filthy, eyes wild, hair matted with more grime then seemed humanly possible. He started to cry even as his fingers gripped the hilt of the knife and the gun he'd hold dropped forgotten into the bamboo.

He wasn't a warrior. No. He was stick thin. He looked starved and desperate and so afraid it hurt Leon to look at him.

The man laughed, dry and scared. Crying through his tears.

"Oh fuck…" Leon moved, catching his shoulders as he started to fall forward. "Oh fuck man. Fuck."

"It's okay. Just breathe." Leon gripped him, trying to get those desperate eyes to focus on his face.

"Thank you." The man laughed again, sobbing and sad, hands grappling at Leon's shoulders, "Thank you. At least…a..t…least thi-this…" He hacked, blood spilling down from his mouth. "…way…I won't turn into…into…one of THEM."

Leon pressed his hands over the gushing wound, trying to stem the flow. "One of what? Of what?"

"Them, man. Them. They're EVERYWHERE. You can't run, you can't hide. You can't even KILL them. The most you can..can…do….is.." He started to shake, crying so hard the words were hard to make out. "…pray. Pray. Do you hear me? Pray."

"What are they?" Leon shook him a little. Though his eyes were glazed now, his mind dying even as the life blood pumped out of his heart through Leon's gloved fingers. "What are they?"

"They…" The man jerked, deaths beginning dance. "…are the darkness…the darkness…the darkness man…and the darkness doesn't care how much you scream…"

He convulsed, convulsed, consumed by death's clawing greed. And the blood poured, thick and wet and hot between Leon's pressing hands.

But the man didn't feel anymore. Didn't see.

And somewhere beyond the artificial silence that had fallen in his demise, something began to roar.

Other men, in this instance, would have run screaming for the hills. But Leon didn't run. He'd been born anew in Raccoon City and groomed by the best in the world to face down nightmares and not blink.

So when something began roaring much too close for comfort, Leon Kennedy didn't run. He started planning. He'd come equipped for battle. He carried his Desert Eagle, he had his shotgun looped over his back, he had the knife strapped to his front. And enough ammo to kill everything that came at him. He'd learned his lesson with the Ganado. He wasn't going in with just a handgun. No thank you.

Leon picked up the dead man's gun and clicked the safety, sliding it into his side pocket of his pants. Never hurt to have more weapons.

The roar sounded again. Closer now. Maybe a ten minute run from him.

Leon scanned the jungle. He figured he had a few minutes to find cover before he was attacked. He could climb a tree and wait it out. Or turn, stand, and wait for some face to face time. Or-

Time was up.

The roaring thing came barreling out of the trees closer then he'd first thought. It was a lion, or had started life as one, its golden body warped and stripped in places to the naked muscle beneath. It's face had teeth as long as his forearm.

Leon lifted the shotgun and fired.

The beast was smart, it leapt to the side and sprang. The shotgun went off again as it soared over his head. Blood rained down, spilled from its belly as the buckshot tore into the soft flesh. Leon rolled, the air whizzed by, and the beast hit the ground inches from where he'd been standing.

It roared in anger at its torn belly but didn't stop. It rushed him and Leon couldn't do anything else but run. He caught the edge of a tree and started climbing.

Claws slashed the bark below him, catching the edge of his pants and scraping the skin beneath. The back of his thigh burned as he climbed, grasping a low branch and swinging up. He kept right on climbing until he was high above the ground.

Below him, the lion paced, snarling and snapping and rushing the tree with its bulk trying to dislodge him. The thing had strength; Leon stumbled as it rammed the tree and grabbed the trunk to hang on.

Well…this sucked. What could he possibly do stuck up a fucking tree?

Time passed, he wasn't sure how long. He tried to fire a few shots at the beast but the lower branches obscured his aim. And if he went any lower, the damn thing would leap up and eat him.

Leon wished he'd grabbed grenades before he'd gotten off his transpo. That would have come in handy here.

Something thunked on the ground below him. Leon narrowed his eyes, scanning the leaves and earth, trying to see what it was.

Raw meat?

It was the dead guys hand and arm, severed from the rest of his body. And the hand held-

"No shit." Leon muttered in surprise a second before the lion ate the arm, the hand, and the grenade it had been holding in a single gulp.

Leon gripped the tree, turned his face into it and waited.

The boom was so loud it dislodged several flocks of birds, sending them soaring into the air with shrieks and screams of rage and fear. Blood geysered up from the blown apart animal, splattering the ground and trees with chunks of flesh, bone, and bloody remains.

Down below him, silence ensued. What was left of the lion looked like some macabre version of a Jackson Pollock. Otherwise known as a big mess with no real point.

"Hey!"

Leon pointed his Desert Eagle at the voice.

"Hey up there! Tarzan! Maybe you want to come back down and join the rest of us."

Tarzan? Say what?

"I realize you're scared of the big bad kittie but I took care of it for you. So you're safe to come on down."

Scared?! He most certainly was NOT scared. Though he might have been a little unnerved at one point.

Leon called back, "Identify yourself."

There was a sigh from below. "I've been sent by the BSAA attachment in the Congo to assist you in collecting, capturing, and returning Chris Redfield. But I can't help you do that if you're hiding up in a tree all damn day. Would you like me to radio back and let them send a replacement?"

Seriously? Was she serious? Did she even KNOW who he was?!

"That won't be necessary." Leon started to climb down. "But you'll have to forgive me if I don't just take you at your word. I'm going to call HQ and get confirmation."

"Sure. Knock yourself out." The voice returned. "I'll just wait down here amongst the guts, Princess. It's a nice way to spend an afternoon, nice and scenic."

He seriously hoped she wasn't his partner for the op. Because she was kind of a mouthy bitch. And he hated mouthy bitches.

He'd spent years trying to get one of them out of his system.

He radioed HQ, gave his access code and waited to be connected to Barry Burton. Burton was in charge of the North American Branch of the BSAA. He'd been the one to send Leon on this little fun jaunt. He'd also been the asshole that had told Leon that his first assignment with the new organization was going to be "cake". Just a little body guarding, no biggie. RIIIIIIGHT.

"Burton."

"You send some mouthy chic in to back me up?"

"Well hello to you too Agent Kennedy. What's the weather like in the jungle?"

"Save it Barry. I've got some woman claiming she's BSAA. I need to know if she's legit."

Barry chuckled. "She's legit. And amazing. You'll thank me later for her."

"You asshole." Leon snapped congenially. "She's rude. And she just spoon fed a dead guys hand with a grenade to a lion the size of an RV. This isn't going to be a little search and discover mission."

Barry was quiet for a long moment. "You want me to send more back up?"

"No." Leon responded, climbing down the tree. "Too many people make too big of a ruckus. But something is going on here. I found a dead marine and encountered another who'd gone crazy from fear of whatevers out here. I had to neutralize him."

Barry sighed. "There's some talk that the Mylan was a test bed for military fronts at one time. You're probably finding the ones who went to train and then went MIA."

"Would have been nice to have this info BEFORE I came in here."

"It's been almost a year since anyone's gone in to look for the missing guys. Didn't think it needed mentioning. Figured they were just dead to the elements."

"They're dead alright, Barry. And mother nature didn't do it." Leon leapt to the ground. "Find out where they were training in the jungle and send the coordinates to my GPS. I'll head toward the site and see if Redfield left anymore clues."

"Roger. I'll get Claire on locating the coordinates. She'll work doubly fast as it's her brother."

"She gonna be okay with me bringing him in Barry? I don't want her to make trouble for herself."

Barry laughed a little. "She's glad its you doing it man. She knows she'll be level headed about it."

"Good to know." He leapt the last distance to the ground and turned to face the woman who'd been yelling up the tree at him, "You know I didn't really need any he-"

She had fallen silent a long time ago. They stood facing each other in the boiling jungle heat.

And she spoke first into the long silence, "I left my bracelet."

Leon's retort was cut short as the trees rustled above them and something big, black, furry, and ugly came barreling down atop their heads.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE: REVELATIONS

SOMEWHERE IN THE MYLAN JUNGLE

They split apart and the thing dropped down between them, snarling and screaming. Leon was still rolling while it turned, targeting the girl who'd stood there gaping at him the same as he'd done with her. Who WAS she!?

He sprang to his feet to see something like a wolfman barrel through the jungle after her retreating form. He didn't think, he swung the shotgun to his shoulder and jacked a shell into the chamber. The heavy round tore into the retreating back of blistering black fur and sprayed a geyser of blood in its wake. The thing skidded to a halt, tearing up earth and sky as it reversed, saw him, and roared its commitment to his demise.

"Hey Fido! Come get a treat, you ugly son of a bitch!"

Jill Valentine had seen a series of strange and unusual things in her day. One didn't survive Raccoon City without having seen more than the minds eye could process. She'd survived and survived again, she'd been tortured, experimented on, and reduced to a puppet on a perverted string. She'd seen plenty to make her doubt the human experience, to make her regret the need to do what she did and save lives.

And then someone did something stupid and brave and ridiculous.

They'd told her, of course, that she was being attached to Leon S. Kennedy. Kennedy, the guy who'd been the right hand of the president. Kennedy the guy who'd run parallel with all of them in multiple ways toward saving the world.

Kennedy…the guy she'd shared a bed and a hut and her body with in Sri Lanka.

He haunted her like the ghost of sexmas past.

She hadn't been able to get him out of her head for the longest time. She'd hoped, a thousand times, when she ended up in places that he would be there. That he'd see her across the crowded room and then—

Well it certainly didn't matter right this second what came next.

She pivoted, watched the wolfman launch itself at Leon Kennedy and try to take his head from his shoulders. Yep, totally didn't matter right in that moment.

She palmed another grenade in her hand and whistled.

The wolfman spun its shaggy head, roaring. She whistled again. "Over here, you bastard. Come get me!"

The wolfman threw its arm out. The move was fast and unpredictable. It smashed into the chest of Kennedy and tossed him up and out, he slammed into a tree some fifty meters away and slid to the ground. She couldn't worry right in that moment the he was still alive.

She raced toward the wolfman. When the distance was right she lobbed the grenade. It bounced and slid. Time went slow and crystal.

She rolled and then ran, trying to get far enough away. The wolfman turned to give chase and the grenade went off. A hand full of moments all rolled into one. The sound was deafening, echoing across the jungle as crater was blasted into the dirt, as the wolfman was reduced to blood and bone and steaming guts, and the blast set birds to flight squawking in angry dismissal.

She hurried toward Kennedy, lying on his side beside the tree. He was very, very still.

"Are you alright?"

He opened his eyes, blinking. And it was still her. She was still there.

She was blonde now. But those eyes were the same. They were brilliant and crystal blue in the shady sunlight that filtered through the humid and heavy trees. That face. He'd never forget it.

He shifted, pushing himself up to sit on the forest floor. "I'm alright." He was. Sore but alright. He didn't think anything was broken. He rose gingerly, rubbing his tailbone. Nothing like a good shot to the ass to make you reconsider your life.

She was in some kind of outfit that might have started life as a torture device. Some excuse for a skirt and a tube top. Knee high boots and a shoulder holster. She wore a little baseball cap in blue over that ice blonde hair.

He glanced at her face. "Who the hell are you?"

She put her hand out, "Jill Valentine."

Shit. He nearly laughed. Jill fucking Valentine. The only two goddamn people in the world that hadn't met during the outbreak, after, or anywhere in between. It seemed that being in the same game, being in the same business, and running parallel was all they'd ever done. Why hadn't they met before? (seriously?) And why had the first time actually happened on a beach in the middle of nowhere?

They called him the Iceman. He was the Executioner. He had a myriad of nicknames in regard to his professional demeanor. She'd seen a photo once on the wall of the BSAA mentioning that he had previously been attached to the DSO and stolen through a series of back channels to FINALLY work with the BSAA. The photo was a fucking joke. It didn't do him any justice at all. He was all hair and eyes and sex on a stick.

Jill said, "So about that bracelet?"

He lifted a brow at her.

She coughed a little. "Too soon?"

He turned and started off through the jungle. Iceman? Who were they kidding? That guy fucked like a well paid whore, licked twat like a starving thing, and had a dick that hammered you while it made you beg for more. Iceman. Geezus. She'd fingered herself for months picturing that face.

She jogged up next to him. "Where are we going?"

He gave her a look. She twitched her mouth. "Come on. Play nice. You think I knew it was you? Not that it matters. Chris is my BFF. So I was coming to get him with or without you."

He kept on walking. He was checking his GPS on his watch. He was pretty rude. But she'd heard that about him too. He wasn't known to like partnering with the ladies, which was really annoying. Holy hell, she mused, she'd gone deep dick diving with misogyny guy.

"Leon Kennedy." She liked his name. She liked saying it. It was a good name. Damn him. And everyone always used both when talking about him. Not just "Leon". Well maybe Clare did. But since Jill had never MET him, he was always Leon S. Kennedy or the Iceman…or the Executioner. Or like Chris called him sometimes "that squirmy little bastard".

He glanced at her face.

"Are you a squirmy bastard?"

He blinked at her.

"I heard that somewhere. That you were squirmy. But I remember you as being quite…not squirmy."

Again, he blinked. She blinked.

A sweaty breeze tickled their faces. She felt like she was being interrogated for war crimes. That gaze of his was direct, judgmental, ice chips cold and intelligent. It was also pissed off as hell.

Why?

Because she'd saved his ass? He was often the hero. So maybe he didn't like girls saving him.

No, she mused, it was because she'd LEFT his ass. Oh yeah, that was it, she speculated. He did NOT like finding his one night stand had flown the coop, literally, when he'd woken up that morning. She was sure of it. Interesting.

"Where are we going, hotshot? Come on. Just tell me."

And he answered, finally, and boredly, "We're going this way."

She watched him keep walking. Jill sighed and jogged up beside him again. They moved in silence for awhile and the jungle rang with sounds around them. She could hear the call of the pygmy monkeys that littered the trees and the warble of bird in the distance. What kind of birds? Who knew. She wasn't National Geographic.

Relenting a little, he finally spoke, "What can you tell me about Redfield?"

"He likes nachos. Probably more than he should. He once arm pit farted the National Anthem at a football game. Twice in a row, he ate a ghost pepper. He didn't barf, but it was close."

"How is any of this relevant?"

"Just telling you what I know."

"Let's try this again," He stopped, wiping his bloody tactical gloves on some soft grass to try to get them sort of clean, "What can you tell me that will help us FIND him?"

"Chances are if we ring the dinner bell, he'll come running. Chris lives in his stomach."

And his mouth twitched.

It twitched.

Oh yeah, she thought, he was a funny guy. She'd heard that too. His bad humor was LEGENDARY. He was the master of puns. She was the master of unlocking. They had a rare opportunity to be good friends.

And, logically, when they'd found Chris and gotten him the hell out of this inferno, they'd find a nice path of grass and go to town on each other. She was totally the girl that was going to be boffing Leon Kennedy. And probably soon.

She said, "We won't find him, Leon Kennedy, unless he wants us too."

"He wouldn't be the first to try to hide." He rose and walked toward her. She smiled. He lifted a brow. She lifted a brow. And his mouth twitched again.

"Let's go…goof."

Boom, she thought, that's how you break the ice around the Iceman. Humor. Check.

She kept pace with him as they headed east. The sun was high and taunting. It was telling them: today is the day you will melt and burn alive the jungle. It was also pretty clearly telling them that they were headed the right way.

They found another body half buried in the dirt. Someone had tried to use this one for a canoe. Or worse. It looked half carved out and was missing all the internal organs. It smelled awful, like rotting meat and three day old vomit. Jill wrinkled her face. "The lion maybe?"

"Possibly. Hard to say."

She glanced at his profile. She had the strongest urge to roll over him and kiss him. It was fascinating. She rarely went against her instincts.

He pulled up his watch and checked their signal on the GPS. They were close to the testing site, clearly. But where? Surely they'd have to clear the jungle first? Testing could happen, potentially, in a canopied environment of course. But the extrapolation of material data would be limited to mission parameters that manifested in a series of m—

She slipped in between his arms and kissed him.

She was tall in those boots. Nearly even with him. And she slipped her hands right up into his sweaty hair, tilted his head down to her, and stuck her tongue in his mouth. He dropped the wallet he'd been looking through from the corpse. His arms curled around her and he gave her what she wanted.

Iceman, Jill thought, PFFFT.

They were salty with sweat and sticky and ungodly horny for each other. Clearly. He knocked her little ball cap loose and gave her his tongue. It was, entirely possible, that her hat simply blew off the top of her head instead of course.

The warbling cry of a bird broke the moment for them. He let her go with a pop of pressure as their mouths released. She smiled, mouth rosy, "Hi."

"…hi."

"I missed you."

He glanced at her mouth and back at her eyes, "Same."

"Mad at me?"

"Can't see why at the moment. So I'm gonna say no."

"You're Leon Kennedy."

"That's what they tell me."

"How in the world did we go this long without meeting?"

"Happenstance? Chance? Severely poor luck? I'm drawing a blank."

"You lied on the beach."

"Guilty. You did too."

"True. I left my bracelet."

"I saw that."

"I wanted you to find me."

"…I wondered about that."

She kissed him again. He made some sound in his throat and gave in. It was so NOT in his nature to stand in the middle of hostile territory, two feet from a dead body, and suck face with the girl version of Chris Redfield. Nope. Not even close. Which was the only way he knew how to be with her anyway.

They came up for air, smiling. "Hi."

"Hi."

He blinked those big blue eyes at her and said, "We are on a mission."

No, she thought bemusedly, he shouted it. He shouted it. And made her jump.

"…yes. Yes we are."

"We can NOT make out on a mission." He set her away from him, "You can't grope me on a mission, Jill Valentine. That…is not how I do things."

"I've heard."

He dropped down to pick up the wallet. She crouched next to him. He leafed through it. "So this guy is Walter Fernandez. He…was….thirty two. And apparently had three kids." He put the wallet in his pack.

Jill lifted a brow at him.

"I return them when I find them. Hopefully gives the family closure."

Oh. He was very kind. His bio said nothing about kind. But he'd danced with her in the rain. So she knew he was also romantic. Again, his bio said he was 35, weighed 170, and could do about twelve different versions of martial arts. It didn't say anything about being funny, kind, or romantic.

They rose to their feet again. Jill glanced around. "The intel wasn't specific on what kind of testing was done here. But I get the feeling it was B.O.W. in nature. Probably went bad and they lost control."

"Seems that way. If it was Umbrella, there's only one real way that stuff like that ends."

"Implosion."

"Destruction."

"Self destruct sequence."

"Generally predicated by a villain revealing their dastardly plot first."

"Obviously."

They grinned at each other.

"All joking aside, Redfield is leaving me clues."

"How so?"

He opened the little palm pilot thing he carried and used the stylus to show her. "The first seemed an accident. It was a lock of hair. I thought…maybe he'd been in a fight and lost it. It took me getting to the second clue to figure out he was leading me. Or someone anyway. He'd left this behind."

He shoved her the little dagger in his hand. "Just there. Driven in a tree. Why leave a weapon?"

Jill said, softly, "It's mine."

"What?"

"It's my knife. It's not you. It's me. We have to find him."

"Where would he go?"

Jill palmed the knife, rolled it, and put it in her thigh holster. "Where he thinks the answers are. If the answers are in Vylamar or in this jungle, we can search forever and we won't find him until he wants us to."

"He's not that good."

Jill laughed, a little, "Yes he is. He can go underground and not come out until he's ready."

"Pfft. I'll find him."

"Yeah? He's been missing for months. How's that working out for you?"

They picked their way further into the jungle. And she could hear the water. It was an oasis or a grotto or something. It was just there beyond the rise. It was beautiful and was all running water and swirling heat. It rocked and rolled and rush around them in a curiously beautiful depiction of what had once been a scenic place. The beauty was ruined by the death that was littered on the ground.

The water was pink from the bloated bodies floating in it. She moved closer to see how they'd died. Sliced from groin to sternum. Their intestines swirled in the hot spring like nasty snakes. She looked away and up toward the top of the waterfall.

There was a cavern behind it, almost invisible. She turned to him. "I think we're going spelunking."

The cave was narrow and tight. They squeezed through and the feeling of claustrophobia was frightening. The narrow sliding push ended in a single circular pool.

She said, "….is the fairy coming out of the water to heal us?"

His lips twitched.

"Fuck. What now?"

Leon Kennedy backed up two steps, ran forward and dove into the water. She watched him go, disappearing down in the inky water like a diver. Smooth, efficient, and apparently smart enough to know that something waited down in the darkness.

She dove after him.

The swim to the bottom of the pool was nice and cool at least. She found the outcropping there and swam through it. The water closed around her as she went. She swam, swam, and was getting very short of air. Jill was just about to panic and he grabbed her hand. She followed him up, up, and they popped up into a small outcropping full of air. Just big enough for their heads.

They gasped, gasped, and Jill coughed.

"Sheesh. What is down here?"

He was looking around the tiny opening. "The path keeps pushing forward. We can't stop doing the same. Keep close to the top of the cave and wait for any chance to get air. How's your swimming?"

"Great. I can do plenty of underwater lengths without needing to get air."

"Good. You ready?"

"Yeah. Just…" She swam a little closer to him and kissed him.

He made that sound again and laughed, bobbing in the water. "That is not the mission."

"Whatever. You ready?"

"That's a hard question."

"Is it a hard answer?"

He twitched his lips. "That's an affirmative."

"Sweet." She ducked into the water and swam down. She skimmed straight down his body when she did it too. He laughed and dunked under after her.

They swam forward, forward, forward and came up for air when they could. After nearly twenty minutes, they emerged onto the edge of a narrow pool. He leveraged himself out using just his arms. He helped her out and they stood up.

She glanced around the cave. It was cool and dark. Stalactite's hung happily all around them and the cave opening across from them was pretty and glistening with moist rock. A door waited just beyond with a palm plate next to it.

And on the floor lay a napkin. And a little grappling gun.

Curious, Leon knelt to pick it up. The little butterfly on it had him curling his fist around it.

"Damnit."

"What?"

"She's already been here. Chances are that she has him."

"Who's she?"

"Ada Wong."

He studied the palm plate in front of them. Jill said, "What would she want with Chris?"

"My guess? He's got something she needs. Or knows something. He found something here. Without question. What?"

"Hard to say when we can't get through."

"Oh we can."

"What?"

"We can." He laid his palm on the plate. It beeped, read his hand print, and opened.

"….hmm."

"Long stories aren't my thing. Suffice it to say she wants me to go in there."

"You often known to be following her around?"

"Probably more than I'd like. We won't find Chris here."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because this isn't about finding Chris. She wants me to find whatever else is in here. I can't go back. I have to find it. I have to play her game."

"What's the rules?"

"Don't die. Generally."

"Seems simple enough."

They stepped into the room. Jill started forward and Leon grabbed her and jerked her back hard enough her teeth snapped together. He all but threw her against the door and covered her with his body.

She said, "Wha-?"

And the first blade swung down from the ceiling a half inch from where she'd been. It whooshed by and took her breath with it. It missed him by a handful of centimeters.

She rolled him off her until they were both flat to the door.

"Why?" She breathed it harshly.

"Another game. She'd let me in. But not just give me the contents of this room. I'm going to have to earn them. Go back and wait for me."

She glanced at his face. "You kidding me? No."

She started forward again and he shoved her against the door. It stole her breath. "Stop it."

"Damnit Jill. LOOK!"

He tossed the handkerchief in his hand. She watched it flutter and fall. And it was sliced cleanly, neatly, and swiftly into pieces.

She gasped a little.

Leon nodded, sharply. He pulled a flash bang grenade from his vest and tossed it. He drew her into him and blocked her face with his hands. Touched, she pressed her mouth to his while the light flashed and the world rang with smoke and sound.

No thinking. He just protected her. That's all he knew how to do.

They turned together and she could see the lasers now. They zigzagged through the smoke. He studied it, glanced at the ceiling, at the walls. She said, "Whatever is in here. We don't need it this fucking bad."

Leon said, softly. "So, the lesson we learn today kids is this: always let Leon Kennedy go first."

Jill chuckled.

Leon glanced at the door beyond them and again at the walls and the floor. He studied the room and she watched his brain work. That the was the draw of him. She'd read that he was practically a genius. She saw it in how he worked, how he moved. He was half instinct, half brilliance.

He scanned the room and took in everything: the ambient temperature, the lay of the land, the curve of the walls, the rotational pull of the gravity at play. He factored it all in his head like an equation.

Jill said, softly, "Holy shit."

He glanced at her. "What?"

"You're using algebra."

His lips curved up into a smile. "What now?"

"You're using algebra. I've never seen anyone, ever, use algebra in real life. But you're doing equations in your head. Right?"

He was rubbing his fingers together as he studied the room. It was his go to thinking move. Oh yeah, the human calculator.

He laughed a little. "I'm not sure it's quite as dorky as you make it sound."

Jill laughed, thrilled with him. "Dorky? Whose shit are you kidding right now, Mr. Kennedy? I can't do anything but look at you. Dorky? Please."

He shook his head. And there was the other piece of him. He was humble. He just didn't get it. He didn't get what he looked like. He didn't get it at all. It was another reason she loved him.

"You are…analyzing or something right? Why not just run and shoot?"

"Oh?" Leon lifted a brow, "What should I do? Pull a Chris Redfield?"

Jill snorted, "Oh do tell…"

"You know…should I fist fight them? He fights ganados…he fights majinis…he fights boulders. His fists are legendary!"

The sarcasm was too good not to laugh. Jill covered her mouth and snorted.

Leon finally put his hand out to her. "Wait there. I mean it Jill. You stand against the door."

She took a step forward. He pointed at her. She smiled. He lifted a brow "Please?"

Oh it was please even. She lifted her hands and stayed put.

She said, "I'll do it. I'll stay put. For a kiss."

Amused, he turned toward her.

He grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her, hard and fast. She felt the pop of their mouths as he pulled away. "Watch it, hotshot. You turn me on surrounded by lasers and we'll lose arms and legs trying to fuck in the bowels of this hellhole."

A grin spilled across his face. "What a mental image. Somehow gross, erotic, and terrifying at once."

Jill queried, "What's the plan, hotshot?"

"Wait. Don't follow. That easy..please."

"Please even. How can I say no?"

"Thank you." He backed up, watching the shift of the lasers in the smoke. She figured out, too late, what he was going to do. He ran at the lasers.

Her heart fell out of her ass in fear.

Leon dove, rolled and went left. He flipped into a cartwheel, moved into a handspring, and pushed off the wall beside him. She watched him run up the wall, flip backward, and throw himself into a front tuck. He spun between two narrow beams of light and nearly killed her as one took a piece of his vest with it.

He'd activated some kind of system. It came at him in a series of twisting, tucking, turning lights that would shear his head from his shoulders. She watched him move like a boxer, tracking it, shifting from one foot to the next. And he dove through the first opening, rolled over the ground and dropped onto his belly as the next passed inches over his head. She couldn't breathe watching him.

He rolled to his back, flipped to his feet and leapt up to grab the light fixture above him. He used it to lever himself completely flush to the ceiling. The lasers hissed and passed with nothing more than a thought over his back. He dropped down and went into a side flip, spinning through it land near the other door. He put his hand on the sensor there and the laser beams hissed, popped, and died.

She stared at him across the room.

"Are you kidding me right now?"

"What?"

"You trying to give me a heart attack over here?"

He smiled, tossing his hair a little. "Sorry. Had to go with it once I was in it."

"You almost lost your dick there."

Leon laughed, "Not even close. Grab a piece of rock from outside the door and toss it in here. Do NOT cross that floor until you do."

Jill, feeling a little numb from fear still, tossed the rock she'd picked up. It clattered and clacked and rolled. But that was it. Nothing else happened.

He watched her. And she KNEW what he'd do before he did it.

He crossed the floor toward her.

Her breath caught and held. "Leon! Damnit! Stop trying to scare me to death!"

"Figured better me than you."

"No. EVER. Don't risk it. Ever. Ever."

He grabbed her and dragged her against him. She wrapped her hands around his vest. Oh, she mused, the adrenaline turned him on too. Click. Something else they had in common. "I thought you were a professional."

"I'm a rebel."

"Clearly."

He kissed her, hard and fast and let her go. She chuckled.

"You look ridiculously hot in that outfit you're almost wearing P.S.."

She nodded, hard. "Yeah. I do." And she dropped her hands to slap him in the ass, hard. He jumped and lifted a brow at her…but he smiled.

He should really stop this flirting. Really. It wasn't going to help anything to do it. But he didn't want to stop. He LIKED it. Leon slapped her ass in that little skirt. And surprised her. "Come on. Let's see what the woman in red has been hiding in here."

They walked into the next chamber.

And came face to face with the tyrant. It was just standing there, waiting. Like it could wait all day. Like it had nowhere else to be but waiting right there for them.

Jill said, "Shit."

It brought its taloned arm down between them and they both dove apart. It struck the floor where it'd been, causing the floor to shake like an earthquake. Jill rolled and sprang to her feet. It came at her like the thunder of god.

The room was a wide open cavernous drop into nothing. It was split by narrow walkways on both sides. She was on one…and Leon on the other. She pulled her pistol and braced, aiming down her arm. The bullets peppered against it and mostly annoyed it. She backed up, stumbled, and nearly fell into the darkness.

The tyrant leapt. Just like that. It went up, up, and came barreling down toward her. She threw herself backward, prayed to god she didn't fall into the abyss, and flipped.

It smashed its arm into her as she went down. It didn't just slap her with that arm. It kicked her like a football. She flipped alright. She went end over end. She felt the air split a second after she was flying through it. She grappled for the edge of the drop and missed. She tumbled down.

The air raced cold and dark at her face. She thought, what a fucking way to die. Why was she always falling to her death?

There was nothing but bloody spikes in the darkness. They raced toward her, promising her a very painful, very awful way to die. She put her hands out as if to stop it from happening.

She heard the pop of sound, heard the whistle and spin of wheels. He caught her, six feet from the spikes. Leon caught her and she held on, her heart racing. She glanced up at his face…and the grappling gun in his other hand.

He hit the trigger and they went up, impossibly fast. He swung them to the other side of the cavern and tossed her out. She flipped and rolled when she hit, springing to her feet. He landed beside her.

The tyrant was a fury of swipes and screaming rage. It started running for her. She backed up and had nowhere to go. She held her ground.

Leon didn't run. He fired the grappling gun at it. The hook latched into the wall eight feet above its head.

She yelled, "LEON!"

And he hit the trigger.

She watched him fly across the room. He swung himself out as she went, in a flying circle. She was running…and she'd never get there in time. She dropped to one knee and aimed down her arm. The world went quiet, static and white noise and nothing but her hand on the gun, her finger on the trigger. She waited.

Leon flew in an arch and drove his feet into it. The impact lifted it up and out. It lifted that arm to take his head. She fired.

The bullet smashed into that ugly featureless face. The arm missed his head by inches. And Leon grabbed it in mid swing. He grabbed it, drug it over the pit and pulled the trigger again. The grappling gun released them both.

Jill shouted his name.

And they plummeted into the pit.

She heard the roaring, heard the sounds of fighting and falling. And she heard the crunch of death. She heard it. And the silence that followed seemed too long. Too long.

She yelled his name into the darkness.

It was a handful of seconds that felt like forever. The gun fired somewhere in the inky black below her and speared that sharp little hook into the ceiling. She waited, breath held, and he came up in a whistling arch. He flipped out of the throw of it and skidded across the ground beside her in a perfect crouch. He threw one leg out to the side to slow the skid. Gravel and dust kicked up around him in a fine cloud.

She grabbed his vest and jerked him to his feet. She shoved him. "I'm going to feed you that fucking gun!"

He laughed a little and looked at it. "This might be the greatest thing ever made."

Jill slapped Leon with both hands on his chest. He watched her tits in that top while she did. "I take that back. THAT might be the great thing ever made. Hit me again."

"Pervert." And she slapped his face. He paused, blinked, and blinked again.

"Did you just slap me?"

"You SCARED ME TO DEATH!"

"I was FINE. I knew what I was doing. This thing is awesome. You want to try it?"

"You're joking? You're joking right now!?"

"Slap me again." He wiggled his brows at her. "Let's see if we can figure out how to dangle and do it at the same time. You've got strong thighs. What's the success rate on Cirque Du Soleil fucking?"

Jill had to laugh. She shoved him again. He nodded approval.

"I'm going to smack the shit out of you before we're done here."

"What's the likelihood your tits will fall out while you smack me? I might let you."

He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her neck. She smacked at him and shoved him away. "Stop being a hero."

"Can't do it. It's what I do. Surely you've heard that about me? I like the rush of it. Jesus. The adrenalines in my dick." He grabbed her hand and put it on him over his pants. "See? Rock hard."

She shoved at him again. "That's very dirty, Mr. Kennedy. And completely ill timed."

"True. We could die at any moment. Not the best time to put your hand in my pants."

She shoved him against the wall and kissed him. He laughed, rushing. They spent five minutes trying to eat each other's faces. She finally shoved him away, panting.

"Jesus. You are the most unprofessional man I've ever met. Iceman, my ass. I'm not interested in jumping your bones right now, hotshot."

He glanced at her chest. "Your nipples make a liar out of you."

She laughed and moved toward the door to the next room. "Focus on the mission, you perv."

"Shades of Chris Redfield, ladies and gentleman. Jill Valentine is channeling that old stick up his ass. The least funny man ALIVE."

The next room was more and less concerning. Ada had been very busy. The room was a long tunnel. He glanced around and it rang bells in place that he couldn't even begin to understand.

Jill was waiting and he didn't look at all thrilled. She was less fond of caves than pretty much anything else on Earth. She glanced at Leon. "This is gonna go bad, very quickly."

Leon laughed. He looked at Jill, "You stick to me like glue, understand?"

She did. Oh yeah she did. She slid against his back and pressed herself against him. He blinked, smirked and stood there. "So maybe I can't move with you back there. But…you could give me a reach around and make it worth the wait."

Jill giggled.

It surprised them both. He turned to look at her. She blinked. "What was that?"

"…nothing."

He laughed, "What was THAT?"

"Nothing. I chuckled."

"That was NOT a chuckle. That…was a giggle."

"Kiss ass, Kennedy. I don't giggle."

"You did. I heard it. I can have the court reporter read it back to you."

"No need."

Leon said, "Survey says giggle, Valentine. You cheerleader."

"Stop it."

"Do a herkie and shake your ass."

"You are the worst pervert alive, Leon Kennedy. My god. I heard you were PROFESSIONAL. I have not witnessed this. ONCE. This is sexual harassment. I don't need to listen to it."

Leon said, "You would be something in that little uniform."

"Clearly. Without question."

"Jill, do the giggle again."

He chuckled again, enamored of her. Irritated, she stalked away.

She let their playing around make her forget. She walked into the tunnel without thinking. Leon yelled, "Jill!"

And the arrow whistled. She ducked but she was too late. She threw up her arm. He hit her in a full body tackle. And she heard it hit. She froze. Her eyes were closed. She knew what she'd see as she opened her eyes.

They hit the floor and slid along it.

She grabbed him.

He said, "Be still."

"Are you hit!? Are you hit?! Jesus."

"Be still."

They'd activated the trap. He heard the pop and hiss and rolled. He jerked her over him and rolled with her. The fire erupted where they'd been. She grabbed him and threw him up and out as the next one popped and exploded. He rolled where he landed and grabbed her hands.

He yanked her forward and she stumbled and went left, missing the next stream of fire by inches. The next volley of arrows thrummed, whistled, and started to land around them.

He threw her under him and crouched while they ran. A popping burst of fire saved him an arrow to the back.

He wrapped his arm around her and swung her around, shoving her against the wall. Arrows struck and broke and stabbed at the ground around them. She pushed at him, hooked her ankle behind him, and dropped him onto his ass. It saved him an arrow to the back.

She grabbed his vest and jerked him up. "Run!"

And this time she was right. It was time to run.

They took off up the tunnel. The tunnel narrowed, narrowed, and the sounds started. It was loud and getting closer. It sounded like thunder and rushing rock. She glanced at him.

Leon said, "Hell."

There was a giant boulder barreling down the tunnel toward them.

Leon yelled, "Who needs Chris Redfield now!"

Jill was laughing even as they figured they were fucked.

They raced toward it trying to find an alcove, a hidey hole, anything to get out of the way. It was twenty feet away and getting closer. Jill said, "Hey hey. Let's try this!" And she dropped the grenade in her hand.

She blinked and Leon grabbed her, running back the way they'd come.

Three second later, the world exploded. It blasted through the tunnel and the force of the wind pushed them down like tinker toys. Rock and stone rained down around them. Leon pulled her under him and covered her from head to toe with his body. She shook her head and stuck her arms up, covering his head with her arms.

What was left of the boulder barreled toward them. It was smaller, weaker in size, a jagged half circle of broken chunks. But it was enough to flatten them still.

Jill rolled, rolled hard, and jerked Leon with her. She pressed him against the wall of the tunnel.

Leon shoved her back and ran. She was with him. They hit the boulder in tandem. They were shoving. It tried to roll them flat with jagged edges and pieces that kept falling off. They slowed it down so it didn't crush them but they couldn't get the path of it to reverse. They were knocked around like bowling pins. Jill spun back and grabbed Leon, shoving him against the wall. Leon grabbed at the jagged edge of it and pushed off. He hooked an arm around her waist and shot the grappling gun into the ceiling. They dangled, swinging back and forth.

The boulder barreled toward them. And they kicked it, hard enough she heard him grunt from the effort. She held on to him and kicked with everything she had. And it started to roll back the way it had come.

They dangled from the ceiling like a funny little puppets. And the broken pieces of boulder hit the walls as it rolled backward and disappeared the way they' come. He dropped to the floor, inspecting the grappling gun. Jill said, "Admittedly, that thing is pretty sweet."

Leon said, "Right?"

"It's bomb ass, dude. Seriously."

Leon chuckled, "You ok?"

"I plan to tell everyone Leon Kennedy couldn't fight the boulder…but yeah. I'm good."

He looked at her back, shaking his head. "I'm no Chris Redfield."

"Poor thing. You'll live." She laughed a little.

They moved up the tunnel, slowly. It narrowed and finally spilled them out into a long corridor. The room was dusty and covered in old carpet and portraits. The portraits were of various cats in various colors. Panther, tiger, house cat, bobcat.

They studied the portraits, trying to discern the puzzle to get through the locked door at the end of the corridor. Jill asked, as they checked for switches and levers, "Why is it always some stupid puzzle?"

Leon studied Jill. She glanced at him. "What?"

He looked away. "Nothing."

She liked that he was looking at her like that. She liked him. She wanted to know what he was thinking but didn't ask.

Jill was watching the lights above the cats. She turned and looked again. She turned back. Finally, she said, "Red."

"What?" Leon faced her.

"That's her color right? Red? We need to turn the lights above them red. But how?"

Jill poked the tiger in the heart. It clicked, whizzed, and the light above it turned blue. Leon poked the bobcat and the light above the tiger turned purple.

She could see Leon trying to figure out the puzzle. Jill poked the house cat and the light above the tiger turned orange. Leon poked the panther and the light above the tiger turned green.

"Is it size based? Biggest to smallest?"

"Too easy." Leon studied the cats. Black panther, gold bobcat, gray house cat, white tiger. What was the connection? They clicked cats and the light kept changing. But never red.

Leon said, "Think we can just blow the door open?"

"Man, I WISH."

And finally she saw the little plaques on the floor beneath the portraits. She read the one beneath the black panther. "In darkness – is temptation…"

Leon read beneath the bobcat, "In sunlight – is hope."

Jill went to the house cat, "In shadow – is strength."

And beneath the tiger, Leon read, "In twilight – is love."

They looked at each other. Finally Leon moved to each portrait. He pressed the tiger, pressed the house cat, pressed the panther, and finally bobcat. The light turned red and the door opened.

Jill lifted a brow at him. He said, "Love the strength to fight temptation and find hope."

She was impressed. She walked with him down the corridor. "They said you were practically a genius."

"What's that even mean? A genius?"

"Probably a guy who uses algebra."

Inside the room was a case with a sample of something purple in it. It was contained within a glass enclosure. There was a tiny gold bowl on top. The sign said: Life for Life.

He pulled off his tactical glove and pocketed it. Jill watched him pull the combat knife from his vest and put it against his palm. He sliced it, no hesitation. And put it over the golden bowl.

It wanted a pretty good amount of blood before it clicked and the case opened.

Jill took the sample out while Leon wrapped his hand to stop the bleeding. She said, "This is it?"

"Seemingly."

"What do we do with this?"

"Take it back to HQ. And analyze the hell out of it."

Jill nodded. "What about Chris?"

"I'm pretty sure the answer is in that vial."

They took the sample back to HQ. It was highly possible there were answers still waiting in the jungle. But without knowing where to go next, they couldn't do anything but wait.

Jill turned the sample over to Rebecca Chambers to analyze. She was happy to. Rebecca was all about virology. She'd take the sample apart and tell them where to find the source.

Leon came out of the shower in his bedroom toweling his hair dry.

It was her voice that drew his attention to her. "Hi."

He lowered the towel. And he was stark naked otherwise. Which was exactly what she'd wanted when she'd come in.

"That door was locked," He said conversationally.

"I'm the master of unlocking."

"So I hear."

"I came for my bracelet."

"I'm keeping it."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah."

"I've done nothing but think of you for months."

He studied her and struck up a cigarette. A filthy habit and one he couldn't break. Sorta like obsessing about her.

"A hard road for a girl that couldn't bother to say goodbye."

"Ah. Hurt your feelings?"

"Seems that way."

"But you're the Iceman."

She glanced down at his body. He did look kinda cold. His nipples were turgid and excited. She said, "What are you thinking?"

He glanced down at himself. So did she. She could see EXACTLY what he was thinking.

She said, "Ah. You have a dirty mind, Mr. Kennedy."

And she opened her legs. She was wearing that tiny little skirt and no panties. She crossed her legs again. He pursed his lips.

"That would make two of us, it seems."

"Could get complicated to do this and still work together."

"I'm willing to risk it."

"God me too."

He moved. She moved. She went to her knees on the bed. She grabbed him like she had talons for hands. He laughed, craving her. He threw her back on the bed and jerked up her skirt. She didn't even get a moment to say no and he thrust inside of her.

It was crude and hot and needy. She gasped, bowed, and wrapped her legs around his flanks. She grabbed his face to turn it to her. They kissed, wet and slow. His body slid into her and out of her and made them both insane for it.

He was the master of her body. There was no lie there. He was demanding and still gentle. He was crude and commanding. He was slick and hot and awesome. She came wetly around him with two strokes of his thumb on her body.

She gave him his name, in a pant, and he braced her hands over her head and held her eyes. His body continued that slow, wet, torturous ride into hers. The blonde hair was everywhere. It was long and wrapped around them both. Shades darker than his, it was a compliment to the Icelandic princess face that had haunted him for months.

He dropped his mouth and she craned her neck. The deep, delving, swirling torture of two tongues inside of one mouth was wonderful and smooth and sexy. He molded her breasts in his hand now, pulling that little tube top down to touch her. It banded around her belly uselessly.

He watched her face while he touched her, while he tasted her. There, she thought, was that lover she'd obsessed over forever. He echoed the smooth glide of his mouth on her skin with the smooth slide of his body inside of her.

He was the executioner after all, he was killing her with want, and she was nuts for him. She skimmed her hands over the incredible and smooth curve of his ass and the delightful swell of muscle in his arms and shoulders. He shifted her, gliding his hands down the inside of her thighs to open her legs wider for him.

She shivered and invited him in. Smoothly, softly, she felt the next wave of orgasm crest and roll over her. She gasped, surprised by the golden edge of it. It was needy, god yes, but not glaring. It echoed out of her mouth in a shivering whisper of his name.

Leon pressed himself inside of her, hilt deep as far as he could go. She bowed, wrapped her legs around him and squeezed him inside her as she crested and came. He dipped his head and took her mouth and went over the edge for her, shuddering, shivering. Smooth, smooth and deep and needy.

He collapsed atop her, shivering inside of her. He turned his head and they rolled tongues and teeth together slow and sleepy.

She said, "How do we work together like this?"

He lifted his head and skimmed his fingers over her cheek. "Very, very carefully."

"I don't ever feel careful when I'm close to you."

"Me either." He cupped her face in his hands and licked her mouth. Jill sighed and shifted beneath him a little.

"You'll help me find, Chris right? No matter what this is."

"Jill, this is you and me. And nothing to do with the other. That day in Sri Lanka? I'd never met anyone like you before. Let's take it a step at a time."

"Deal."

She wiggled out of that little outfit and into the bed with him. He laid on his back and she laid her head on his stomach. He played with her hair, almost passively.

"Want to tell me about the blonde hair?"

"Long story. Wong?"

"Longer one."

"I'm digging on you, Leon Kennedy."

"I'm kinda crazy about you too, Jill Valentine."

"Well crappola."

And now he laughed, "That sounds about right."

Her communicator beeped on the floor. She rolled away to check it and turned back to him. "Looks like we've got some answers."

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward. She went and he rolled her beneath him to kiss her. It was just hard enough to steal her breath. He leaned back to look at her face. "Let's go find out what they are."

She was kinda afraid the answers were going to cost them each other. And, for the first time in her life, she wanted to deny the truth of whatever waited for them. Because she wanted to keep him.

And she just wasn't sure how they did that.

This was a total mess.

And she couldn't wait to see where it went next.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR: STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

BSAA HEADQUARTERS

The first thing you could say about Rebecca Chambers was that she knew her virology. She could go on for hours and hours about mutation and infection rates in primates until you literally thought your eyes would cross and fall out of your head. She was beautiful, without trying, in the way a bird is beautiful - simple and ageless. She might have been fifteen or fifty; you'd never know. The scatter of freckles on her pretty face highlighted the flattering short haircut she'd had, Jill mused, as long as she'd known her.

She was running down the various counterpoints of the sample they'd come back from the jungle to give her. "So what we think we see here," She touched the large screen where she was seat, showing Jill a bunch of very boring data that reminded her of the Matrix, "Is G? It's G, right? It's Progenitor and a NE-A Type parasite composition. This was Birkin's masterpiece. G was meant to instill the infectee with immortality. This virus though? It's NOT G. Look!"

Jill was not nearly as excited. It looked very boring. She lifted a brow, studying it.

She didn't get it.

But Leon Kennedy got it. He was standing next to her, making her feel funny in her pants, and wearing something that was half torture, half fashion fabulous. The shirt was blood red, the vest was black and soft like good leather. The pants and boots probably cost more than she made in a month. When he shifted, she was sure that label said D&G.

He leaned over Rebecca and the desk, studying the data on the screen.

"You're saying this is something else? Something new?"

"I'm saying it's something scary. Look at the infection to mutation rates in this simulation. It's saying minutes. MINUTES. You ever seen something that could infect in minutes?"

"The reports that Chris filed from Kijuju indicated the ingestion to infection to manifestation of viral response was fairly quick there. But that was plagas. And ingestion of the parasite was always suspected to be typically superior to injection."

Rebecca glanced up at him as his eyes flicked and flicked again across her data. "You were infected."

"I was. The parasite had to be taken out by the use of high intensity laser and light dissolution. Hurts like a son of a bitch. Are we seeing the indication of infection here?"

"Preliminary data suggests inhalation."

He glanced at her face and over at Jill. "You're saying it's airborne."

"Oh it could be, yes. This is bad news. And worse than bad news, it's not the first time I've seen something similar. Look here," She turned and brought up more data. It was a picture of Sherry Birkin and a stream of information from the experiments they'd put her through. Leon clenched his teeth at it. It was the reason he was in the game. First, he'd gone in to save the little girl they'd found in Raccoon City. Now? He was in it because it was all he knew how to do. "They were experimenting on her. But that wasn't all! They were mixing her blood with other viruses to see the response. And using the samples and derivatives on soldiers in the Mylan Jungle."

"The testing ground."

"Oh yeah. Chris is out there right now searching for the answers on what happened to his men on that mission recently right?"

Jill nodded, "He lost every one of them. It was the worst thing I'd ever seen. The infection was all over that school in minutes, maybe less. We couldn't figure out why Chris didn't turn."

"I can tell you why," Rebecca shifted again and opened up another computer screen, "This is a sample of Chris' blood taken when we do our monthly testing to determine exposure. Look here," She gestured to the strings of data coming up, "He has a natural resistance to the T-Virus backed by the vaccine we all got when Wil Pharma produced it. But he was a natural resistance to this virus too. Why? Watch." She ran the simulation on the computer. They watched the dissected mess of the viral sample move over Chris' DNA and throw an error. "See? He should mutate. But he doesn't!"

Curious, Jill said, "Why?"

"Because of this," Rebecca hit more keys and the data kept flying across. Jill didn't get it, but Leon Kennedy got it. "Do you see it!?"

He said, almost reverently, "He's immune to Veronica."

Rebecca nodded, rapidly, excited, "He's IMMUNE. How!?"

Jill replied, "I can actually answer that, surprisingly. He was stabbed through the chest by the mutated form of Alexia Ashford. Twice. In her original mutation and her final one."

Leon studied her face and glanced at Rebecca, "Could the transmission have created a natural resistance?"

"Given enough time and repeated exposure. But he only faced her that one time. The likelihood of that occurring is next to impossible."

"But possible."

"Possible. But unlikely."

"You mean like the likelihood of the undead rising from their graves?"

Rebecca chuckled. "So let's go with this theory: Chris has antibodies to Veronica. This sample we're messing with is a strain of that, yes, but not the whole. But if it was released in the air at that school where he lost his men, and he didn't turn, he's now not just the last survivor…he's the only guy in the world with antibodies to whatever this is."

Leon turned away from the screen to pace a little. "That's why she took him."

"Whom?"

"Ada Wong. Is she protecting him? Or handing him over?"

Jill was leaning on the desk, watching him. "She gave you this sample. What's your gut tell you?"

"Don't trust, Ada Wong," He turned back to her, "It's tell me he's safe. Angrier than a hornet, no doubt. But safe. But maybe not for long. Somebody else but Ada is after this."

He looked to Rebecca, "You said variants were being created and tested in the Mylan. Would we find anything relevant there if we went back?"

"Unlikely. Erosion of natural resources and time would have destroyed most empirical evidence. You both brought back samples from the wolfman and the lion you faced, I'm analyzing those now to see what the strain is."

"Any chance it's going to come up something we can formulate an inoculation against?"

"You're asking me to simulate a vaccine on a virus that I don't even know all the components of?"

"That's the idea."

"Agent Kennedy, they told me you were a bit of a pain in the ass."

Leon laughed, rising. "I have my moments. But I don't think I'm underestimating you."

"We beg to differ there. But I'll do what I can. I really need Chris to get a fresh sample of his blood. But I'll try to run a few probabilities of creating an inoculation with what we have on file here."

"Thank you."

He gestured to Jill with his head and they moved out into the hallway. She leaned on the wall, watching him. He rolled his head to meet her eyes. She was in a white t-shirt and the gray uniform pants of the BSAA. Her blonde hair was carefully braided to her scalp. It left her face in sharp relief and brought your attention to the perfection of it.

"We need to go to the school where he lost his men."

"Yes. I agree. But we can't move without some kind inoculation first."

"Agreed. If Ada has him, she's not the only one looking for him."

"Who?"

"If I knew that, I'd be on my way to stop them." Leon started down the hallway with her beside him. "First things first, we need living tissue."

"From what?"

"Something infected with that virus."

"What should we do? Bring back B.O.W.S. until we find one infected with an unknown virus?"

"You got a better way to extract and retain living tissue?"

Jill stopped him in the hallway. He glanced at her face, paused, and twisted his lips to the side. She grinned, all teeth.

"….you are probably a dirty girl, Jill Valentine."

"No probably about it. But I'll let it go for now. And say only this: I do. Follow me."

…

Quint Ketcham sort of reminded Leon of a weasel with big ears. He wasn't handsome, by any means, but he had a busy body movement about him that left you curious what he was up to. He went from one end of the room and back again, muttering.

Leon was sitting on a table in the supply area of headquarters with one knee drawn up and his wrist draped over it. Jill had flipped a chair around and was straddling it with her arms piled over the back.

Joel, the other supply tech in the room, was all elbows, glasses, and skin and bones. He looked like Buddy Holly had given birth to a six foot two baby with Howdy Doody. He was lacking the filter to know when to keep his mouth shut but he had a brain capable of seeing things that normal people missed.

He said, "Quint, you see this?" He was gesturing to the streams of data on his monitor. "They want us to create something to protect these two from infection. And infection we have no real data on. What kind of shit is that? You want a filter for a virus that we don't even know a damn thing about?"

Quint snorted, "Right? Just…POOF. Cause that's how it works. Afterward, we're gonna go meet up with David Copperfield and make a 747 disappear. POOF!"

The doors at the end of the room opened and a little woman came scurrying in. She was barely five feet and had three pigtails in rainbow colors sticking off her head. She had coke bottle glasses and big green eyes. "I might have something!"

She hurried over the large clunky device sitting on the table. It was the Genesis and it was their best chance of getting a tissue sample without bringing back a dead body. She picked it up and removed the battery pack on it.

Quint lifted a brow.

"Just wait!" Her name was Frannie and she was barely out of college but had an IQ nearly as high as the two men she worked with and sometimes infinitely more common sense, "Look. If you do a few modifications of the battery cell and create a secondary chamber for sample retention…you just need to be able to keep it on ice while you get it back her. Preserve it next to the battery."

"The battery makes heat, Frannie." Quint was studying it though, Leon could see his gears work in his head. "But if we reroute the battery power through a chiller potentially activated by anterior cooling functions…."

Murmuring, he moved over to his desk.

Joel turned to Jill and Leon. "Let's talk about what happens when you get down there. Straight out of the gate, we know you'll need respirators. There's no way to go into a hot zone without them."

"Logically the infection isn't airborne anymore though," Leon met those curious eyes, "If it was, EMS and any one else that had come in there after Chris' team was slaughtered would have been infected. The building, the grounds…I don't think the virus stays. It latches onto the host and infects but it doesn't remain active on non-living tissue. It's organic, and that makes it better and worse."

"We can't be sure about the surfaces or anything else. Even if you forego a respirator, which is just fucking stupid, you need to make sure you wear gloves and do NOT touch any membranes or exposed tissue. Don't rub your eyes, don't wipe your ass. Don't do any of that."

Jill twitched her mouth. The kid had just called Leon Kennedy fucking stupid and told him not to wipe his ass. No filter Joel was the best person on Earth.

Leon studied him and only Jill could see the amusement in his eyes. "So you want me to drop a deuce and what? Shake it loose?"

"You often take a shit in a hot zone?"

"If nature calls, I answer."

Joel chuckled.

Quint said, from the table, "Do yourself a favor and try to take a shit before you go man. You don't want to pop a squat on an infected toilet and get your balls full of this virus. Imagine Alien…and think about something like that popping out of your nutsack."

Leon was no longer amused. He shuddered.

Jill was still amused. "What's the likelihood of that happening?"

"Honestly? Pretty small. Think about bacteria. Most bacteria can only survive for so long on a non-porous surface."

Leon looked at his face, "Such as?"

Quint turned, crossing his arms, "With inocula of 6 to 7 log10 CFU, most vegetative bacteria and spores tested survived on surfaces for more than 5 weeks, but all were inactivated within 90 min of exposure to hydrogen peroxide vapor in a 100-m3 test room even in the presence of 0.3% bovine serum albumin to simulate biological soiling."

Jill felt her eyes cross, "English please."

Leon grinned a little, "He's saying there's a chance the surfaces could still be contaminated depending on the nature of the virus and its composition."

"Ugh. I hate science."

Quint looked appalled. "Science is the fuel of the gods. Let me take you to dinner and explain the wonders of it to you."

Leon was watching her, so very amused. She laughed a little.

"Don't shit where you eat, Quint. Seriously."

"Well I never get out of this hellhole. How's a guy supposed to get his game on?"

Joel quipped, "You have game? What game? Pacman is your game."

"First off, Pacman is the tits of the gaming industry. Secondly, I have plenty of game. I'm gonna get Mira to say yes one of these days."

Jill chuckled and rose from her chair, "Mira will never say yes. She probably hates you."

"Why? I always tell her how hot her ass is?"

Leon laughed and slid off the table. "Maybe try telling her how beautiful her eyes are instead, guy. Really. What color are they?"

"Brown."

"Not today. Today they are the rich color of whiskey. And you can't get enough of them."

"Oh…got it. Yeah that's good. Addiction huh?"

"Exactly."

"Give me about an hour to modify the Genesis and we'll get you guys suited up to go down to the school."

"Sounds good."

Joel glanced over as Jill and Leon left the supply area, "You get the feeling he has game?"

"Dude, that guy is ALL game."

Frannie giggled. "I'd play all DAY with him."

"It does seem somewhat unfair to be smart, look like that, and also have game. Where's the fairness in the universe?"

Joel chuckled, glancing at Quint, "Maybe he's hung like a mouse."

And all three of them laughed.

….

He wasn't. Clearly.

He was, however, currently up to his neck in bubbles in the bath tub in his room. Of course, he wasn't alone. Jill Valentine was leaning back against his chest in the tub.

She was trailing her fingers over his knee, which was cocked and poking out of the water. He was casually petting her belly in the water. The nature of their relationship was quite amusing. Who else in the world sat in a bathtub filled with bubbles and talked death?

"If everyone is dead, how will we find a living sample?"

"They quarantined the area after the infection took all Chris' men. So there won't be humans for us to find there. But they'll be animals or insects. It doesn't need to be anything big. Just something with enough tissue to allow Rebecca to extract the data she needs to start building a vaccine."

"Is he safe? Really safe? I feel like I should be pushing harder to get him back."

"She has him. He's safe. She's a lot of things but she's not a killer. Not when she doesn't have to be."

"You sound almost fond of her."

"It's a grudging respect at this point."

Jill turned her head to study his face. He shifted enough to kiss her. Soft, silky, and still enough to light the warm fires in her belly.

"Respect huh?"

"Hmm. What else?"

Jill lifted a brow at him. He lifted one back.

"Hmm indeed."

And now he laughed, clearly amused. "Jealous are you? She's very beautiful. And very deadly. And very dangerous. We flirt, it's what we do, but it's not like that. Ada's not someone you catch and keep. She's probably got thirteen different agendas happening at all times. Not really the type you sweep off to Paris at a moment's notice to romance."

"…oh." She turned in the water and he cupped his hands over her ass to hold her, "Oh…you went there."

"What?"

"You totally WENT there. When did you have, Ada Wong?"

"I never had Ada Wong."

She studied his face. "Ok. Maybe not all the way then. But you had something. When?"

Leon chuckled and stroked her back in the water. "Once."

"HAH!"

"Hush, goof. ONCE…after one too many glasses of incredible scotch, in a seedy little Russian hole in the wall, I MIGHT have had a thing with Ada. For a few minutes. It was…nothing. And it was done. She mostly uses it to torture me now whenever I see her. So it clearly cost me more than it should have."

"What like…over the clothes?"

He lifted a brow.

"Under the clothes?"

He held the brow up.

"Spill the beans here!"

"Why? It's done. It was stupid and impulsive and brought about by being hard up and lonely. It's not worth talking about."

"You dirty little man. You get to third base?"

"No comment."

Jill laughed, delighted with him. She slid her hand down in the water and wrapped her fingers around the heat of him. "You want to hit a home run?"

His hands lifted her and shifted her until she settled over him. It was that strange and wonderful smooth need that swelled between them; gentle and still erotic in a way that stole the breath and replaced it with a shimmering sense of sweet promise. He cupped her face while she rose above him and she curled down to take his mouth.

She scooped his hair back from that startling face and they held eyes while they tasted each other. It might have been Ada Wong, once, she mused, but it was her now. It was her all over him. And she liked it.

Objectively, he was fairly certain he was going to fall in love with her. She was already in there, squirming and worming around inside him like nothing he'd ever really known before. She'd gotten him to chuck aside his professionalism, his strict "no dating" policy that applied to co-workers, and his stoic demeanor on missions. She was the most fascinating creature that had ever entered his life.

He wasn't sure how he felt about loving her. It wasn't safe, clearly wasn't sane, and also would likely impact their professional life in a nearly painful way. But the thought of never touching her again had chased him around the world after she'd left him that day in Sri Lanka. He wasn't going to go back to that feeling. He was in it, for better or worse, and he wasn't a man who ran when things got hard or confusing. He finished the mission. And faced the music. The music was leading him to Jill Valentine.

The mission? The mission would lead him to her male counterpart.

He didn't quite know how to tell her that there might not be anything worth saving when they got there. If Ada had Chris, he was safe…but he wasn't. She wouldn't just leave him sitting there playing video games and feeding him like a pet. She'd be poking him for information or poking him for samples or fucking with him for fun. She was just that way.

He just wasn't sure that Chris was the type of man who could stand up to the force that was Ada Wong.

….

She had him bound to a chair in a little empty metal room that reminded him an interrogation chamber. She'd snuck up on him in the jungle and shot him full of a tranquilizer. He'd woken up in this room. She fed him, she ignored him, and she occasionally took vials of blood.

He was trying like hell to talk to her and find out what she wanted. But apparently Ada Wong didn't care about conversation.

She depressed a plunger against his neck and got a hiss from him.

"You planning to let me shower today? I could use one."

Ada said nothing, moving over to insert the vial of blood into the case she always carried with her.

"Come on. Put a gun on me, put me in the shower and let me clean up. Pretty please?"

Ada lifted a brow at him.

"I won't fucking run. I won't do a damn thing. I just can't stand to sit here and smell like wet ass anymore. I've cooperated right? So help me out."

Ada left the room.

"Fuck." Chris stared at the ceiling, trying to find his bearings. Where was he? He had no clue. What was worse was that no one was probably looking for him. Why would they? He'd gone underground months ago. He'd started uncovering the answers to what had happened to his men and knew he was on dangerous ground. Someone had to be watching him.

So he'd gone down, down deep, and stayed that way. Until he had answers, he couldn't risk exposure. But he was tired of smelling like a sweaty set of balls and body odor.

The door opened and Ada Wong came back in. She had a bow gun in one hand and a towel in the other.

"I will let you shower. You will do so, quickly, and then I'm going to be kind enough to let you remain a cell I've set up for you."

"Thank you. You want to tell me why you're holding me?"

"Come, Mr. Redfield, you know that won't happen."

"Fine. Just…get me the fuck out of this chair." They moved from the room with Chris still in handcuffs. She took him to a shower facility while he tried to figure out where she was holding him. The instinct in his gut said was a prison. Abandoned, clearly, but where?

The shower facility was a row of showerheads and a chair. He lifted a brow at her. "You want me to shower in front of you?"

"Naturally. You don't think I'd give you privacy do you?"

"You could at least buy me dinner first."

She hooked his handcuffs and sat down in the chair, straddling it and keeping the bow gun aimed at him over the back like a brace. She gestured to the showers. She'd been kind enough to put a bar of soap there and the towel at least.

Chris shrugged, "What the hell right? When in rome…"

He grabbed the shirt over his back and peeled it off his sweaty skin. Ada kept the bow gun on him. Admittedly, his physical presence was commanding. He was simply too big and too much not to take over the room in which he stood.

He was beautifully built. All muscle and girth and hair. From the unshaven face to the fine sprinkling of hair on his chest, to the shaggy mop of uncut hair around his head, he was very male. What was the phrasing? Alpha male. He was that.

Ada tracked him with the bow gun while he stripped down to the bare skin. He was dense and dark and very sexy. She could see the draw on one hand. There was simply so much of him. The right woman would find big and dense to be incredibly erotic, she supposed. Not her type, exactly, so there was no risk of that on her end.

He lifted a brow at her as he moved to the shower. "Like what you see?"

"You maintain yourself, clearly. Why? Albert Wesker is dead. The fight died with him. There are still factions, true, but the risk is negligible. You could retire or even scale back. Perhaps assume a command position within your own organization. Why continue to fight on the front lines?"

An interesting question from a woman holding him captive. He studied her face as he cranked on the water and turned to face it.

Ah, Ada mused, it was a very nice ass as well. He simply swelled everywhere with that muscle. Noticeably less big then when she'd seen him briefly outside of Kijuju. But he was still heavily muscled. Why?

"Do you really care?"

"No. Just making conversation."

"That'd be a first. You've had me for days. This is the first you've bothered to speak to me."

"I'm curious about a great number of things. Naturally. We have time together here. Might as well enjoy it."

"Enjoy it? You have me captive here. How can I enjoy that?"

"There are ways, Mr. Redfield, to make the most of captivity. Leon Kennedy would already be figuring out how to escape."

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to bat my lashes and fuck you to get you to let me go. So I'm not Leon Kennedy."

Oh. Fascinating. He was laboring under the impression that she and Leon were a thing. They weren't, exactly, but of course she could see the confusion. They did have a tendency to tread the line when they met. He was simply adorable and she couldn't help it. She enjoyed the game of flirting.

So she amused herself.

"What if I promised to let you go if you did?"

Chris snorted in the water. "You can't be that hard up. A good deep dicking wouldn't get me out of here, Ada. And it would probably rot off if I tried, so I'll pass."

"Interesting. You think I'm dirty?"

He opened one eye and met hers, "I think you're bad news. And you're holding me here for something more than trying to get me to rub my cock all over you."

"An interesting image. You don't find me attractive?"

He studied her now as he washed his chest. "You're clearly very beautiful. And you know that. You don't need me tell you it. What game is this?"

"I enjoy flirting. It passes the time. Amuse me and I may give you information for the effort of it."

He lifted a brow at her. "Alright. Why not? You tell me why I'm here, let me go, I'll fuck you so hard you'll be bowlegged for a week."

"Is that flirting?"

"Sure. My version."

"Clearly, you are NOT Leon Kennedy."

"No. I don't wear fancy shirts, take fancy shits, and say fancy words. But I also don't bother to lie or make shit up either. What you see? It's what you get."

Ada studied him in the soapy spill of water. She could definitely understand the attraction here. Handsome or not, he was commanding and managed to make it clear he was also honest to a fault and rather endearing for it. Take it or leave it was likely a good amount of how he operated.

"You have antibodies in your blood."

Surprised that she'd actually spoken, he turned back from the water to look at her.

"What?"

"You are immune. How? I need the answers. Your blood has the answers. I can't let you go until I have them. And if I do? The other people looking for you will take you. They won't let you shower, they won't care if you shit yourself while they take you apart a piece at a time and use you up."

"I'm a hard man to catch."

"I caught you."

"Touché." He cranked off the water. Ada rose and kept the bow gun on him. "But I need to know what happened to my men. I have to. I have to find who's responsible."

"We have the rare opportunity to potentially help each other here, Mr. Redfield. I can't let you go. But you can work with me and we can find what we both need."

"You want me to be your prisoner and still help you?"

"Better me than out there alone. You won't get far. And you won't get revenge that way. But I can help you do both. And you can help me get my own."

He toweled off, watching her. And he nodded, "Alright. What do you need from me?"

"First and foremost, clothes. It tends to be distracting to work with a man who is entirely naked."

"I've never had trouble working around naked men myself."

She twitched her mouth a little. "Are you funny? Time will tell."

"I've been known to crack a few jokes."

"Do I need to cuff you?"

They studied each other. She was tall for a woman. He was guessing five foot nine or so. The Chinese heritage was clearly stamped on her beautiful face. But that wasn't the draw here, he reflected, it was the intelligence in that face. She was learning him as they stood there facing each other.

"I won't run. If you can help me find the answers, I won't run."

"Good. Let me show you what I know." She turned and gestured to the stack of clothes on a chair near the corner. "Get dressed and be quick."

He found her waiting outside the showers with a little tablet and he moved up beside her. She flipped through images while he squeezed water out of his hair. It was shaggy and needed a trim but she liked it on his face. "Here, we see the virus is airborne. It infects and rejects hosts alternatively. Those who are denied the properties of it, simply become zombies similar to T. But smarter and more likely to band together in groups to attack. Those accepted by it?"

She flipped another picture.

It was a man. Sorta. And it was a beast. Sorta. It looked kinda like a vampire. The teeth were all sharp and hungry. The face was slightly elongated. The ears had peaked. More Nosferatu then Twilight, it was still intelligent. He could see that when looking in its eyes.

At this point in the story, dear readers, we would discover that the trapped and handsome Chris Redfield was starting to figure out what had happened to his men. He knew, what Leon Kennedy didn't know, that the men who'd died with him that day hadn't died at all. Not all of them. Some of them were still there.

And still waiting.

"What happens to them?"

"They change. They mutate. And they become this. But you didn't."

He lifted his eyes to her face.

"Mr. Redfield, you didn't mutate. You have the answer in you. Why? The airborne strain should have killed you on contact. But you didn't even turn. I've been trying to find out what the virus is to know to synthesize of a vaccine for it."

"No offense, Ada. But you don't seem like the type to make vaccines. Or even give a shit about the world in general. Why?"

"I have my own reasons. I won't reveal them. But suffice it to say I need to know what I'm up against. And I need you to do it."

"You want to go back there?"

"Potentially. Although I don't think we'll find the answers there."

"Where are the answers?"

"Where they've been all along. In that frozen base in Antarctica. You're my prisoner. Should I chain you down and leave you? Or would you like to come along and find the truth?"

He studied that face, felt the shiver of something that might have been attraction, and gave her a wolfish grin. "I said I was in. I meant it. I won't run. But if you turn on me, I will put two between your eyes and leave you to rot."

"Fair enough. And it cuts both ways, Mr. Redfield."

"I don't betray people that earn my trust. And it's Chris."

"Chris, I'll earn it. But will you?"

"Let's go find out."

…..

BSAA HQ

"This is the Xenodysmorphia 3000." Quint lifted the little thing in his hand that resembled a phone. "It disrupts and distributes sound waves to a degree that it scrambles the brains and central nervous systems on B.O.W.S."

Leon was being fitted for armor plating. He lifted his arms as the little tech girl ran around him with the measuring tape. Jill sat close by, smoking and grinning.

"Why doesn't it work on the humans in the vicinity as well?"

"It works on a molecular level," Joel informed them, shifting and setting down two small metal grenades on the ground next to their gear, "The first few rounds of testing had it damaging human and non-human alike. We finally had to find a way to engineer it to the specific sequence of molecules found in non-organic creations."

Jill said, "Blah blah…blah."

Joel gave her a roll of his eyes.

Quint said, "Jill Valentine, ladies and gentlemen, doesn't care about anything but kicking asses."

"I'll kick yours in a minute, Quint."

"Will you give me a kiss first? I might let you."

Jill rolled her eyes.

Leon glanced at the little metal grenades. "These?"

"EMPS. Electro Magnetic Pulse. It'll scramble and fry anything with an electronic signature for a thousand yards. Including but not limited to, aircrafts and structures."

"Gotcha. What about the blue ones?"

"Pulse grenades. Usually aimed at underwater work, a pulse grenade works with distortion technology to throw a high frequency blast. It works on land too and works like a charm. It won't kill them, most likely, but it'll stun the shit out of them."

Leon picked one up, hefting it. "You could have designed it to be lighter."

"Hey! We work with what we've got." Quint turned back and lifted the Genesis. "She ready. She can now handle a refrigerated sample. Once you get a sample, you've got about eight hours to get it back here before you kill the battery on her and lose your hard work."

"Got it."

"Living subjects are best. If you get the opportunity, bring it back alive. Dead probably won't give us what we need."

Leon nodded and Frannie came over carrying a heavy, insulted, and decked out vest. "Here it is, Agent Kennedy. Bullet proof, knife proof, and hopefully hunter proof! If it stabs, shoots, or slices…it can't get through here. So your chest is safe…"

Mira said, from up above where she was packing their assault bag, "It's a nice chest. Best to protect it."

Mira was all boobs and good humor. She was pretty, petulant, and constantly being hounded by Quint for dates.

Gertie, as tall as Leon and as Nordic as the land from which she came, was bringing the shirt that went with it. "So this is your under armor." She picked up his combat knife from the table and stabbed the shirt. It didn't do anything but sit there. "Nice right?"

"Definitely."

"It's moisture wicking and meant to either heat or cool depending on the climate. It's ugly." It was pea green and not flattering, "But it'll get the job done."

Leon slipped it on and it was also very, very snug. He lifted his brows.

"And, of course, there's that."

Quint snorted out a laugh, "Look at this guy! Ridiculous."

It sorta was. Chris looked ridiculous enough in the tight shirt, Jill mused, Leon Kennedy looked impossible. You could pick out every muscle in that perfect stomach and chest. He twisted his lips to the side and shrugged.

Mira chuckled from up top. "He's kinda stupid handsome, right? I keep waiting for the camera crew to come out and say HAHA! He's not real! We lied. And dump a dude that looks like Quint down on us instead."

Quint retorted, smirking, "You'd love that Mira. You love me. You think I'm the tits."

"I think you're the ass, Quint. Clearly."

"You want to get some of this ass?"

"I can't think of anything I want less at the moment. Including being fucked in the ass by a pulse grenade. Or a hunter."

Leon lifted both brows. Jill winked at him.

Working here was half sexual misconduct, half dirty language. She figured working with the DSO was half uptight boring and half…uptight boring. So really ALL uptight boring.

Frannie said, "The shirt was designed by Chris."

"True. At first I was pretty sure he was joking when he put it on." Gertie replied, chuckling.

Mira quipped, "Were you? I went blind for two days looking at him in it. So I didn't even know what the hell he was saying anyway."

Leon chuckled. "It's interesting to be working in a place where I get the feeling men are constantly objectified."

Mira answered, "We like flipping stereotypes on their ears here, hot stuff. Let me know if we're making you feel funny in your panties or anything. We'll lay off."

"Pretty sure I can handle it."

Joel answered, "I heard that about you. They say you were the only guy to go up against the Los Illuminados. That can't be true though. One guy? And what'd you have like…eight bullets?"

"I actually had fifteen. And a pack of gum. Sadly I lost the pack of gum when they took my jacket. I was…not thrilled. It had three sticks left."

Without a word, Jill offered him the half pack of gum she had in her pocket. He met her eyes, his twinkled, and he took it. He put it in the pocket of the vest they were latching on him.

"Don't lose it, hotshot."

"I'll do my best."

"You were the only guy there?"

"Sadly. It was supposed to be search and rescue. Once I was in it, obviously, it was worse than we could have thought. I had to play it out."

"That's how you became the legend you know."

He nodded at Gertie as she yanked something on the vest hard enough to startle him. It was heavy. It clearly took muscle to pack it around on your body. Safe or not, this much weight would begin to weigh you down after awhile. "It's one tale after enough about what MIGHT have happened. Some of it is true, some of it comes from the mouths of people repeating what they heard from other people. I survived, I saved the girl. It was a good day."

Mira said, "Christ on crutches, he's humble too."

"Right?" Remarked Gertie, "Humble and handsome. What a combo."

Quint interjected as he poked grenades in the assault bag, "What about the ESR? I heard you fist fought like twenty five lickers."

"Not exactly."

Frannie added, "Did you fist fight Curtis Miller? They said he mutated and you fist fought him. And then you made out with some girl in the water."

Jill lifted a brow. Leon seemed to be considering.

"One of those things is true."

Quint hooted a little, "You made out with the chic in the water."

"No comment."

Joel remarked, "I heard that too about you. You're all about hands in the pants."

Looking slightly amused and insulted, Leon answered, "Since I have to know, what does that even mean?"

Gertie replied, "You are a flirt. Notoriously. And always stringing girls a long."

Mira added, "You leave them all hot and bothered with their hands in their pants."

Leon glanced at Jill. She gave him a blank expression. "I'm a tease?"

"Notoriously."

Considering, Leon decided it was time to put some myths to bed. He strapped on his side piece into his thigh holster and slipped on his shoulder holster. "Ok. I fought twenty five lickers in the ESR, that part is true. I did NOT however kill them with my bare hands. The evidence to that is the fact that I still have my head. I didn't fist fight Curtis Miller. But I did fight him….and I totally made out with the girl in the water…twice."

Mira chortled. Jill chuckled herself. She was the other girl in the water to get made out with, obviously. So she was ok with it.

Quint said, "Why?! Why is it never my turn? Mira! I will make out in the water with you."

"Quint, if we are in the water together, it is because I'm feeding you to sharks. That is the only time we will be in the water…ever."

Gertie remarked, "So just a man."

"Just a man. And the unfortunate result of too many people looking for a hero."

Quint came over to hand him the Genesis. "Well, hero, I'd like to officially welcome you to the BSAA. And maybe you could teach me some of your moves sometimes."

"Sure. Happy to."

"Mira! If JFK over here teaches me some moves, you mind if I practice them on you!?"

"Quint, the only moves of yours I want to see are the ones involved in you walking away from me."

"You love me. Admit it!"

"Ugh."

Jill and Leon moved together toward the far door. Joel was telling them about the vehicle they were taking.

"It's fast and has armor plating. It's been tested versus hunters and tyrants and held up pretty well. I can't promise anything, of course, with unknown BOWS."

"I'm sure it'll do the job just fine."

Joel tossed him the keys. Jill caught them.

Leon glanced at her. "I heard you're a terrible driver."

"Sheesh. Crash a couple cars and people never let you live it down."

"So that part is true?"

"Extenuating circumstances but, yes, I may…or may not…have crashed some cars in my day."

"I'm keeping the keys. End of story."

He followed her toward the vehicle, chuckling.

Castle Hill Highschool

They were given respirators but a scan with the Genesis upon arrival at the school deemed it completely unnecessary. There were no signs of lingering airborne infection.

The school itself was huge, spanning something like thirty thousand square feet. It was the kind of school where you could join the polo team or the water polo team respectively. It rose like a goliath into the skyline above it.

Peppered with the remains of a fire that had tried to burn away the disease that had run rampant in the guts of it, the hollowed-out shell of the administration building was little more than steel and sagging beams. You could see the suggestion of a storm coming on the graying and darkening horizon.

They picked amongst the ashes of the administration building looking for anything that could be taken as a sample. The first signs of infection here had brought the BSAA riding in to contain it. It had gone south, fast and sharp. Someone had dumped the virus into the vents and taken down faculty and agents alike. She could just see Chris here, fighting for his life with twenty to one odds.

Jill turned to look at the man scanning with the Genesis amongst the rubble. She'd woken some time in the night to find him inside of her. He was like that, smooth and hot and nearly infuriatingly slow about taking her up and letting her come down in his arms. He made love like he moved, smoothly, no wasted movements, all energy and controlled ability. He made her hungry for him just by existing.

The risk of what they were doing was long suffering. One, they never…EVER…used protection. Which was stupid and exciting and wrong. In twelve ways. Seriously. But she had an IUD so pregnancy wasn't the problem. It was the feeling of it…of that raw and naked contact. It made them both crazy. Two, this had to end badly. It had to. Someone would find out they screwing and use it against them. The BSAA didn't necessarily had a policy against it but it was frowned upon.

He was new enough in the agency to want to watch his footing there. She should stop sticking her hand in his pants and let him work. But she didn't want to. A series of failures in her life and a hop skip and a jump later, she didn't want to be a good girl anymore. She liked looking at him and feeling him between her legs. She liked waking up to find him balls deep in her body. She liked it. And she liked him. A lot. He was funny and charming and sort of endearingly dorky.

He watched Star Wars on his phone when he was sitting in the bath tub. He apologized for burping. He made Shepherd's Pie like a gourmet chef. He was just that guy.

She wasn't ready to say bye to that. Wherever it went from this point on.

Leon pushed open the door to the main lobby of the school. It creaked and kicked up ashes. He coughed a little and the clock tower attached to the school started to gong the hour. Loud, loud, and echoing.

Leon glanced at her face. Jill chuckled, "I feel like maybe we're in Silent Hill."

"Right? I see Pyramid Head and you're on your own."

"Leon Kennedy, the executioner, scared to death of Silent Hill."

"It's no Raccoon City."

"Unquestionably."

Jill laughed and moved with him into the school. The floors and lockers were covered in debris and ashes. The wind in the partially burnt out hallway was kicking up enough of it that was annoying. The lockers to one side had detached from the wall and were starting to fall forward. A scatter of chairs littered the middle of the hallway, tossed there during the struggle no doubt.

Jill scanned the area with her Genesis. The ambient temperature was sixty eight degrees, there was no sign of life in terms of heat signatures. But it was picking up life forms a little further up on the second floor.

They moved toward the far stairwell. The smell of ozone and chemicals was still strong. It hadn't been very long clearly since someone had torched the place.

He glanced at her face as she cleared the stairwell and signaled him to follow her.

She was something. That heavy braid of blonde down her back, those eyes. She was aware. She wasn't just a pretty face and a giggle. She was a pretty face, a giggle, and a brain. A big, smart, beautiful brain that learned even as it assessed. He could see the smarts all over as she listened to him. They were learning from each other each time they talked.

The sex was secondary. Well it was primary when he was pounding himself inside of her and watching her scream, but it was secondary to what drew him to her. She was clever and quirky and mouthy, true, which he usually despised. But he liked it on Jill.

Little was known about her time under Wesker. It was widely speculated that he'd used her like a puppet to kill and torture. Sources in the bioterrorism world knew little but what wasn't classified. She'd come back and the wall of top secret clearance protected what she knew.

He wasn't even authorized to know it. And he was authorized to know how many shits the POTUS was taking daily. He knew everything. And he didn't know that.

He'd ask her about it, maybe, some time when they were closer and naked. After he'd put his tongue in her and watched her fly. But for now, it was a matter of knowing she was capable, conscious, and clearly dedicated to find her partner.

Leon was seldom a man given to the idea of a long term relationship. It simply didn't wash in their business. You didn't have the time, the inclination, or the ability to maintain an ongoing love affair. His escapades with women were brief and sensuous and done. And yet he wanted to be in her every time he looked at her.

It was a conundrum. And a pleasing one. That day on the beach. That day in the jungle. She was the only woman in 35 years to make him feel this way. She kept him on his toes and he liked it.

At the top of the stairs, they moved together toward the science lab. He braced a hand on the door, nodded at her, and they pushed through into the room. He cleared high, she went low.

The thing waiting for them didn't care about that at all.

It turned its head from where it was eating the person on the table in front of it and hissed. Its mouth was full of fangs and blood. Thunder rumbled and cast a flicker of lightning over that face. It was still wearing a BSAA uniform.

"I thought the bodies were cleared out."

"Some were unaccounted for. We cleared the area. Where was it hiding?"

"Hard to say."

Leon lifted his gun on it. "But there's our sample."

"If you kill it, it won't work."

"I know."

"So what?"

"Get and hold it down."

"You fucking kidding?"

"Sadly, no."

"Fuck that."

"It doesn't have to be in one piece, Jill."

Ah. Ahhhh. She nodded. "Ok. I see that. So let's get the damn thing and get out of this tomb. It feels like the saddest highschool ever in here."

"Not a fan of highschool?"

"Was anyone?"

It rushed them and small talk was done. Done. Done. It jumped, bounced off the ceiling, skittered over the wall like a bug and landed between them as they split apart.

It swiped at Jill and she flipped back, missing the moment she'd have lost her head.

Leon shot in, no bullshit, right in the stomach. It hissed and sprung at him. He holstered the pistol, dropped his knife into his hand, and waited.

It swung and he feinted left, spun low, and came up in a brilliant and fast swirl of movement. He sliced it open from wrist to elbow. He rolled the knife in his hand, rolled his shoulders back, and missed another taloned jab to the face. Jill kicked it from the side and jabbed her knife, sharply, into its back three times in a row. Pop, pop, pop. Leon followed it up by flipping his knife, arcing it down, and taking one taloned claw with it.

He got slapped so hard with the other one for his effort that he was lifted off his feet and thrown away. He hit the table closest to them in a shattering spill of beakers and glass and rolled as he came down, spilling to his feet. Jill rolled out of a somersault and took her knife to its legs. One thigh, the other, she just flurried it like nothing Leon had ever seen.

It backhanded her and sent her spinning. He shot the grappling gun into the ceiling above its head and hit the trigger. Flying forward, he drove his feet into it and shoved it clean off its feet. Jill raced toward it as it hit the wall and went through, bursting free into the next classroom.

Leon picked up a stool from the lab and swung it, smashing it into the thing as it started to rise. He drove the stool down on it and pinned it there, holding it in place.

Jill drove the butt of her gun into the back of its skull and knocked it out. It was still and they both waited. And finally Leon moved to bind its one remaining talon to the feet. They hog tied it, essentially, and he hit the button his communicator.

"HQ this is JFK, we've got a B.O.W. in need of extraction."

Quint came back to him, "Good work! It's living?"

"That's a roger."

"You're worth every penny they paid out to get you over here with us dude. Nice job. The extraction team is the way. Just hold down the fort until they get there."

Jill said, "I like how he thinks you did it alone."

"I'm a legend. I can smite zombies and B.O.W.'s with fireballs from my ass. Hadn't you heard?"

"Oh yeah? I heard you could scale entire buildings with just that hair of yours…like Rapunzel."

"Really? I was pretty sure I could just create a plane out of yarn and toothpicks and good thoughts. Like MacGuyer."

"Without question. You can also speak fifteen languages and fuck a thousand girls in a single night."

"Well that's actually true."

Jill giggled.

He glanced at her again. She froze, blinking.

"I'm on to you, Jill Valentine."

She moved toward him to probably suck his face off and the first sound of something scary filled the air around them. They both blinked, listening. Leon rose, slowly.

"How long until extraction?"

"Too long. Too damn long. What's the plan?"

She glanced at his face. "Right. Right. Don't die."

The sounds of whatever was coming down the hallway toward them was going to make particular plan be very, very, very difficult to follow.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE: SILENT CASTLE HILL?

CASTLE HILL HIGHSCHOOL

They rushed to secure their sample victim before whatever was coming got there. Leon rolled the shotgun in his hands as they secured the unconscious thing to one of the lab sinks. It was better than nothing and they didn't have much time to find something better.

Leon ran out into the hallway and made a big show of loudly jerking a shell into the shotgun. From the end of the hallway came two of the things in the lab. They hissed and screamed, high pitched and frightening. They also watched him, cocking their elongated muzzles like dogs, twitching their claws. They were…waiting him out?

He aimed the shotgun at them. And they moved. They leapt and separated and skittered. One came along the ceiling like a cockroach. The other tore up the row of lockers along the wall in a scream of metal as it rushed. He shot the one on the ceiling and watched it scream and fall, spastically jerking and throwing itself around as it burst with blood.

The other one leapt to the adjacent wall like smoke as he fired on it next and sprang off, caught him full body in a tackle, and took them in a skidding slide across the floor. Leon hit the wall, felt dazed, and felt that talon aim for his chest. It hit the armor plating and was brought up short by it. Good to know it lived up to its reputation.

He bashed it in the ugly face with the shotgun, rotated it and blasted it off him. Leon leapt to his feet and jacked another shell into the chamber. The first one rushed him again, but jumping and shifting and rolling now. It had learned enough to know he'd shoot it if it stayed still too long.

Leon rolled the shotgun onto his back, fired off the grappling gun, and swung to meet it. He swung out, running along the lockers on the other side. He pushed off, twisted in the air to avoid the heavy repeated screaming slash of claws, and drove his feet into it. It was lifted off, he grabbed his side arm, and put two into it as it went flying.

He hit the trigger on the grappling gun, rolled out of the fall on the floor, went left to miss the following swipe and leap of the other mutant, and ripped the shotgun off his back as he went. He was on one knee and firing as Jill stood there, transfixed. It was blown backward, hit the row of lockers, and he finished it off with a subsequent blast to the face.

She'd never seen anyone move like him. Humble or not, he was the best she'd ever seen. She stood there as the silence fell around them.

He rose, looping the shotgun on his back again.

"I don't think we'll be alone for long."

"…I think the stories are true."

"About what?"

"Where the hell did you come from?"

He lifted a brow, watching her. "What?"

"Who trained you?"

Leon chuckled and went back to check on their hostage. It was awake but carefully bound, hissing at them. "What do you mean?"

"You move like…I don't even know. Like a video game character or something. It's surreal. Or unreal. Or insane. How?"

"I work out."

"….seriously? That's your answer?"

"I can't tell you a lot of what I know, Jill. That's how confidentiality works. I can't. It's classified. Even when I was young, I was always testing high on things. The genius part is true, IQ wise. The rest is just trial and error, hard work, and getting knocked down A LOT. I just know what to do. I just do. I can't explain it any better."

"You are the best I've ever seen."

He paused, rose, and turned back to look at her. "That's quite a compliment."

"It's true. Take the compliment. I'm impressed."

"Well thank you. But it's not necessary. Part of it is just instinct. The other just hard won skill."

Jill studied him for a long moment.

He was using the Genesis to take a sample of the thing on the floor. Just in case they lost him in combat, having a secondary stored sample wouldn't make the mission a complete wash. The nature of extraction meant they would be waiting for a team to come in and take their hostage, essentially. They could take him themselves, but there was a risk of encountering hostiles with a potential hostage. The risk to reward ratio had a tendency to dip in favor of the enemy when dealing with extenuating circumstances brought about with variant degrees of dif—

She slipped in between his arms and kissed him.

He set the Genesis down on the lab table and kissed her back.

The little bells and whistles in her head were alarming like crazy. They said, your goose is cooked tootz. Give up. Her hands curled up his back, his settled on her face and turned her face up to him. It was smooth and wet and very, very slick.

Jill pulled back, laughing a little. "You're trying to kill me."

"Me? You keep putting your hands all over me, Jill Valentine, not the other way around."

"True. The way you MOVE..god."

"No. Just a man. Don't do that. Don't start seeing me with any kind of filter on. I'm not anything more than a guy with some skills that gets lucky sometimes."

"You're so fucking humble."

"I'm just honest."

"You're amazing."

He met her eyes. They held gazes for a very long moment. She felt a flutter in her chest that made her nervous. Would she ever, ever, get tired of looking at him? He was angles and sharp lines and hair. He was humble responses and smooth hands and hot, hot eyes. He was pretty close to everything to her and she wanted to look at him until she went blind. And she laughed, gently.

"Sorry. Mission. No time for kissing and googoo eyes."

She was right. But he wanted to stand there and make googoo eyes at her. She looked at him like he might know the answers to the great questions of life. But didn't she get it? He'd been on that beach that day looking for the answers to life. And she'd come out of that water like a goddess and offered him the answer. She was the only thing in his life that made no sense and, by existing, made all the sense in the world. He wanted to fight for her and fight with her forever. She was the world in a curvy body with a sexy little smile that made him ache for her. He wanted to touch her right then, right in the middle of that mission, with bodies all around them and watch her eyes while she crested, came, and shouted his name. And that wasn't like him at all. Smirking a little, he started to say something witty or clever and the sound of dragging metal brought his attention up. Jill listened as well, wide eyed.

Leon moved to the open door way of the lab and looked out.

Coming down the hallway wasn't pyramid head, but it as close. It was eight feet tall and white faced like a kabuki doll. It was wearing some idea of a BSAA uniform over its body that had burst and grown and split with muscle and sinew and exposed bone. The face was elongated, like the vampire thing on the floor, but longer still with a mouth that was nearly a foot long and filled with a thousand teeth. Its head was perpetually cocked to one side with long pointy ears that twitched as it pulled the weapon in its hands along the floor beside it. The weapon was a four foot section of steel beam with jagged, bloody, rusty tips.

Jill said, "Here's your chance to run, tough guy."

And Leon Kennedy stepped out into the hallway.

It saw him, considered him, and stopped.

He swung the shotgun forward and it roared. Although roar was a mild word. It screamed, screeching and twitching, and it shook the hallway around them. Dust poured down and shivered around him.

Leon tilted his head, considering it as well. "That it?"

He blasted the shotgun at it and it surprised him. It swung the steel beam and batted the round away. It knocked that heavy round into the ceiling and sent tiles down in a broken tinkle around it.

And the roaring had brought reinforcements. Two more were coming out of open doorways beside it. Leon turned the shotgun to one of them and they parted, leapt, and came at him.

The blast took the first in the chest as it leapt to land on him. The second was blasted an inch from his face by the woman behind him. He trusted her to cover his flank and advanced on the giant one. It threw the steel beam. Just like that.

Leon braced as the steel beam smashed into lockers, sparking and screaming with metal. It spun like a top, lightning fast. He fired the grappling gun at the last moment and swung out of the way, running along the wall beside him and pushing off to miss it by inches.

It was still barreling toward Jill.

He hit the trigger, dropped and aimed again. The gun went off and he was jerked forward, flying. He dropped, looped an arm around her waist, and threw them up with the momentum of it. They felt the air split and sear with the beam an inch from where they'd been.

He dropped her on top of the row of lockers and rolled the rough the movement to his advantage. She watched him dive off, fire the gun again, and swing out in midfall. He kicked the closest mutant in the face, dropped to the ground, ducked to avoid the swiping claws of the other one beside him, and drove his combat knife into its roaring jaws.

Yeah, she thought, the fucking best she'd ever seen. It wasn't hero worship, it was truth.

Jill ran along the lockers, pounding metal. The big one was three feet from him. She dropped her knife into her hand, lifted her pistol and put two shots in its face. It roared, slapped the lockers with its big arm, and shook her loose. She jumped on its back.

The knife came down, fast and heavy. She jabbed, stabbed, and slashed. It tore through flesh and sprayed blood. And the thing roared. She would have killed it, no doubt. But the back split where she hung. It split with a crack and burst of bone and brittle flesh. The shirt ripped more, exposing bloody tissues and muscle beneath. And bones burst out of its back like…wings.

She leapt clean and felt the slice of one of those bony wings as it caught her in her retreat. She gasped and rolled across the ground. She avoided the slapping strike of one massive arm. And Leon Kennedy shot it in the chest with the shotgun.

The wings spanned six feet out from its body. It flapped them and stirred the air. It didn't care about the shotgun blast at all. It absorbed it. And from within the long, gaping mouth a forked and bloody tongue emerged. The forks were razor sharp and dagger thick. Jesus, Jill thought, the horror of imagining Chris like this was too much.

She grabbed the pulse grenade from her hip. She threw it into that nasty mouth and rolled. The idea was brilliant, Leon thought as he rolled back and ducked, but it went south quickly. The thing burped the grenade out nearly as fast as it swallowed it down.

Leon fired the grappling gun and swung forward. The grenade went off before he could get to her. It caught Jill, the monster, and him in the crossfire. He hit the trigger on the grappling gun as he was stunned and dropped to the floor like a puppet.

The monster was thrown into the wall, twitching. Jill lay on her side on the floor, frozen. He tried to shift and his body was telling him to stay down. The monster was getting up as well.

His hand moved for his pistol but his arms were twitching and jerking. Damn pulse grenades. Worked like a charm…until they back fired.

The monster was on its feet. It flapped those wings and blew ashes and debris around it like a tornado. A second set of arms burst out the sides of its muscular torso. The rip and pop of flesh was disgusting. It spilled blood and screamed, twitching and jerking from the effects of the grenade.

The second set grabbed Jill from the ground and picked her up. She was still limp and frozen. Leon grunted, trying to get to his weapon. It licked that tongue over her face.

And one of the smaller ones was just there beside him. It ripped him to his feet, shaking him like a dog with a bone. It tried to rip out his heart and the vest stopped it. But it didn't stop the fangs that landed where his neck and shoulder met. It hurt, he screamed, and Jill was making some kind of sound of fear.

This was going to end badly. He felt the rush and gush of pain and blood. Damnit. His hand dropped the combat knife into it and he reared back and drove it into the back of the head of the thing feasting on him. The movement hurt and ripped pain down his abused shoulder but he twisted it and jerked it free. The thing dropped him and he went to one knee, flipped the knife, and threw it down the hallway.

It struck and thrummed like an arrow into the tongue at was curling around her throat. She drove her knife into the chin of it. It wasn't going to matter a fucking bit. It didn't care. His hand brushed the little phone in his pocket.

OH.

OF COURSE.

He dropped the Xenodysmorphia into his hand and hit the button. Just like that.

The two running down the hallways toward him were taken down in a screaming, shaking, flopping mess. The one holding Jill dropped her, spastically flapping those huge wings. She rolled away and ran toward him.

Instinct had him throwing her behind him. But she leapt free and kept running. She pulled her pistol as she ran. And she was firing into the two on the ground.

Leon shot off the grapple gun into the ceiling, zipped fast and immediate toward the thing at the end of the hallway, and hit the trigger at the last moment. It propelled him forward like a dart. He hit it full body and the momentum drove them together into the stairs.

Leon hit it and pushed backward, knocking it down, and springing into a back flip. He fired fast and continuous with the shotgun when he landed. But the thing simply didn't die. It rose and screamed it bashed him clean in the face with one huge wing as it lifted, lifted, and took flight into the air. The Xenodysmorphia had slowed it down but it wasn't dead. It was just weakened.

It flapped and moved through the shattered and burnt out roof above it. He shot it twice more as it flew with his pistol for all the good it would do. And six more freaks leapt down from exposed beams and burnt out openings.

He was surrounded now. Jill was surrounded as well. Things had just turned very bad.

The Xenodysmorphia was still recharging. Leon eyed the roof above them. He backed up toward Jill and whistled. She turned and he signaled with his head.

Taking the cue, she blasted the one between them with her gun and ran at him. He fired the grappling gun, ducked low to avoid losing his head, kicked the swiping arm away and she leapt on his front like a monkey as he hit the trigger. They rocketed up and leapt clear when they hit the opening in the roof. She rolled along the broken and rickety ground. Leon grabbed her hand and propelled her forward.

They went up instead of down. The ground was covered with at least fifteen of them. Not all were in BSAA uniforms. A lot of them were civilian clothes. Teachers and students, clearly.

He lifted his arm to fire the grappling gun again and the bad shoulder shook weakly. He dropped the gun and Jill caught it. She grabbed his face with one hand. "Are you ok?"

"I'm alive. So I'm sticking to the rules of the game here."

"That looks fucking awful."

"Thanks for the pep talk, coach. Let's get the hell out of here."

Jill fired the grappling gun at the farthest side of the clock tower. He lifted a brow at her. "What?"

"Really?"

"I can hold you. Grab on."

"…really?"

She leapt on his front again, wrapping those strong thighs and legs around his middle. And they were no longer alone on the rooftop. Too late to change tactics now, she hit the trigger.

He grabbed her around the middle and grabbed her hand with his good one, holding on. The ride was fast and exciting, despite how awful the circumstances were quickly becoming. They flew across the sky like a bullet, caught in the moonlight in a nearly beautiful arch.

They landed together and she grinned, bouncing a little. "See?"

"I stand corrected."

"You can apologize later. Move!"

They ran across the roof top to the next opening. It was down into what looked to be the shop class or the automotive shop. She could see the front end of a hollowed out car that had been waiting to be fixed. She leapt down and cleared the room before he followed.

He didn't look good, she mused, he was pale. And the wound on his shoulder and neck scared her. Was he infected?

There was no time to worry. The door burst open and they were no longer alone. She had a moment to think: zombies? And they were, kinda, they attacked in threes though and seemed to know not to be the only one left alone.

Jill spun a roundhouse through the three of them and scattered them around. She grabbed a wrench from the table beside her and wielded it like a baseball bat. She knocked the first one in the face, spun it low and took the legs out of the second one. When the third came at her, she flipped it in her hands, put it straight over her head, and smashed it down into that face.

Leon grabbed the screwdriver from the wall beside him, flipped it in his hands, and threw it. It zipped, popped, and thrummed as it struck the one behind her right between the eyes. When the next set came in the door, he kicked the table over in front of him, drove a kick into the table leg, and took the broken piece. He was weak on his bad side but not broken. It would take more than a vampire with a thousand teeth to put him down.

Leon stabbed the first zombie in the eye, jerked the table leg clear in an arc of congealed goop, and shoved it into the chin of the next one. He spun back, threw a spin kick at the next two, and knocked their heads together. As they moaned and toppled, he jabbed the table leg into the face of the first one, kicked the legs out of the second, and followed it to the floor to finish it off.

Jill whistled and he ducked, instinctually, the diving moaning mouth missed him by an inch. But Jill threw a kick over his head, hooked her leg around that moaning face, and threw it out. He tossed the table leg up to her from the crouch he was in and she tossed it, taking the stumbling corpse off its feet in a bold and strong assault.

One of the vampire freaks was in the room now and came at them like lightning. Jill rolled across the table, grabbed the hammer hanging there, and tossed it to him. Leon caught it, angled it down like a golf club, and came up swinging. It struck, smashing face and teeth in a bright red wash and crush of bone. He threw an elbow back at it as it reeled, rolled the hammer in his hand, and hit it square in the center of its forehead. Jill leapt on the table and buffalo kicked it from one hand. It went down and she grabbed the head, dropped to the floor, and broke the neck backwards over her shoulder.

Leon lifted his brows at her and she said, breathlessly, "Chris."

"Ah."

"You ok?"

He was pretty hot actually, which worried him. She could see the fever in his eyes, which worried her. She said, "Hold on. Back up is coming."

"If I start to turn—"

"Shut up."

"Listen, if I start to turn. Put me down."

"I said shut up, idiot." She grabbed his face. "Shut up. You're Leon Kennedy. This isn't where you die. Don't be stupid."

"I'll turn. Because Chris fucking Redfield was immune, I'll turn. That's how it works."

And she laughed, a little afraid. "Shut up. Let's get out of here."

She took the hammer and palmed a pulse grenade in the other hand. She looked out into the hallway and it was filled with zombies and vampire freaks. Horrified, she tossed the grenade, slammed the door shut to the automotive room and grabbed him. She threw him to the floor behind the over turned table and covered him.

….she covered him.

She literally protected him.

Touched, he felt the world rock as the grenade went off outside the room. Ashes rained down but they were safe from the blast this time. The floor shook and he glanced up at her face.

She said, "Hold on to me. You hear me? Hold on and I will get us both out of here."

Oh. She thought he was broken. He touched her face. "I'm ok, Jill."

"Stay that way."

He smiled at her and his eyes shifted, ever so subtly. He jerked her to the side, rolling, rolling. Later she'd think, WHY!? And she was beneath him when it landed on them.

She felt his body jerk, she watched his eyes and saw the pain register.

"…no."

And the talon burst out of his stomach and hit the floor two inches to the left of hers.

"NO!"

She grabbed the hammer and rose up, feeling him bleeding on top of her, she rose up and smashed the hammer into that screaming face. Leon grabbed her around the waist, grabbed the grappling gun on her hip, and rolled. He held her with his bad arm, fired with his good one, and she grabbed his hand to help as they were lifted and tossed into the air.

The door burst inward as they were jerked clear of the room. She grabbed him as they landed and he went to one knee, hand holding his stomach.

"Oh god," She pulled his hand away and it was a mess. It was bad. It was above his left hip and bad. "Jesus. I'm gonna be the girl that got Leon Kennedy killed."

He laughed a little, hoarsely. "I don't die that easily."

"Wait, please," She grabbed the hemostat from her emergency pack and tossed the powder over the wound. She shoved clean gauze against it and taped it down. She put pressure on it while he swayed. "Hold it, ok? I'm going to treat your shoulder."

He nodded, white lipped.

She treated his neck and shoulder, covering the wound and stopping the bleeding. He watched her in the moonlight and thought she was impossibly beautiful. Her pale skin, those pale eyes, her icy blonde hair. She had blood on her face but it just showed her for the warrior she was.

She touched his face to check for wounds and was afraid. He was burning up.

She touched her ear, "HQ this is Vermillion, come back."

"Vermillion this is Jackass, over."

"Where is the fucking evac? It's over run here. And we're not doing too good. JFK is wounded. And one of those things? It took a big nasty bite out of him. So I'm pretty sure I need a vaccine YESTERDAY."

"Hold tight, Vermillion, the cavalry is coming. Get that sample back here and let's try to fix the hero."

"Roger. But don't try, Jackass, tell Rebecca to fix him."

"Roger."

Leon was on his feet, which surprised her, and moving toward the edge of the roof. She could see the fever in his eyes, on his face. "They're coming."

He nodded. And faced her. "They won't make it."

"What?"

"Jill, I can feel you in my head."

"What are you saying?"

"I can feel you in my head. And not in a good way. I can see your veins, feel your blood. I want to take a bite out of you and see what you taste like. They won't make it. And if they do, there won't be anything left of me to save."

He moved to the edge of the roof.

"…are you serious right now? What's this? The big hero? You gonna jump over?"

He twitched and shivered. She shook her head. "Don't Leon. God damnit."

He glanced off into the night skyline. And he could feel the wind in his bones. He could taste the air and smell the trees but not like before. Like a hunting dog or a wolf. He rolled his shoulders and he could feel his blood in his body like an organic thing. Which it was, clearly, but now it felt like fire and lava in his veins. He turned to Jill and could see the outline of her pathways from heart to lungs to brain. He could see her heart beating in the cavity of her chest and smell her fear.

She grabbed him and he put his face against her neck and scented her…and licked her.

She pulled him away, staring at his face. "Put me down."

"No. Idiot."

Snake quick, he grabbed her and pulled her into him. He kissed her and she let him. She let him and his blood fired and exploded inside of him in a rapid and painful laugh.

"Jesus Christ."

"What?" She whispered it.

"I can see inside this building."

"What?"

"I can see the bodies and the movement. Without a Genesis. I can just…SEE it."

She grabbed his face. "Look at me and hold on. Please."

He rolled his nose over her wrist and licked her. She made a sound and shook her head. Leon flared his eyes, delighted. "I'm glad you're afraid of me. That's really bad right?"

"Oh yeah. Hold on, hotshot. We're almost there."

And he started to shake in her arms. He was burning alive. He had to be 105 and rising. He was going to fry his own brain with fever.

The sound of helicopter blades was murderous and loud and she heard the roar of the cavalry arriving. She grabbed him closer and shoved the sedative in her hand into his arm. He blinked and dropped his hands from her.

"Why?"

"Just in case…just in case. I can't have you hulking out and attacking someone. I can't see them put you down. Please. I'll find the vaccine. Just hold on."

"Some legend huh?" He slumped in her arms. She held him and went to one knee. "See? Just a man.."

And she watched Leon Kennedy go under and stay down. Terrified, she held on to him until they took him away.

….

BSAA HQ

They kept him in stasis in a tank in the center of the lab like…a tyrant. Or something. Or something else awful…while they worked on the vaccine.

Rebecca kept shaking her head and muttering.

Jill paced beside the tank, nervous and afraid. He was just floating there hooked up to tubes in some kind of gelatinous goop, in a sexy little pair of boxer briefs with all those perfect muscles waiting for her hands. She couldn't touch him and couldn't help him and she was sick with fear.

"Any luck?"

"The best I can do, without Chris and the antibodies, is slow it down, Jill. We NEED Chris."

"How slow can you make it?"

"Pretty fucking slow with what I've gathered from the fresh tissue sample. I can halt it and give you…a week? Maybe. But that's speculation. Eventually, without a cure, he'll turn."

"I'll get the fucking cure."

"Hey!" She called out as Jill started to leave the room, "Wait! There's something else."

"What?"

"He's dead useful like this."

Jill lifted a brow.

"Think about it. He's the best of both worlds. You've got his skills and his brains and he's got their abilities. He's…Rogue. Or Batman. Or something. If we can harness the infection and retard it, he might be the most useful ally ever in locating Chris."

Jill turned back to the tube and looked at him. "How long to administer what you've got and know if it's working?"

"An hour, tops. Quint was tracking some transmissions he picked up over the SatCom earlier. Check in with him and come back. We'll see if I'm right."

"What if you're wrong?"

"I'm never wrong. But if I happen to be wrong this time, we'll just have to put him down."

"No." Jill found Quint and Joel working in the tech room. They were running transmissions and analyzing data.

Quint hailed her, "Hey! Sorry about JFK huh? Raw deal. But he'll be ok. I have a feeling a guy like that doesn't just drop dead."

"Not usually. What have you got?"

"That's where things get funny. See here?" He gestured, "Somebody bounced a signal all over hell and back. It went through eight different servers before I caught it being sent to a server in Raccoon City. It's a not so much a message as a PING."

"Meaning?"

"Somebody was dropping hints as to where they were."

"Chris?"

"Maybe. Or maybe the bad guys pretending to be Chris. Either way, it's saying Antarctica. But why? The only thing there is wasteland and rot."

"…And Veronica."

"What?"

"It's where Chris was infected with Veronica. The base there. Where Ashford was. He's there. Get me coordinates and start assembling gear."

"You're going alone?!"

"No. Not this time. Get Mira and Gertie. Find Carlos. And tell them to get ready."

"Will do."

"Get me anything that works on hunters, anything that works on avian or amphibians, or insect. Fuck it. Review the data on Antarctica and Chris' time there. Review Veronica and assemble what we need. And get me something to stop these sons of bitches we're up against."

"Anything else, bossy pants?"

Jill slammed out of the room and went back to the lab.

The stasis chamber was empty. She blinked, turned, and found Rebecca watching her.

The fear clawed at her throat and made a nest in her guts. She lifted a hand to her collarbone. "Is he…?"

"He's fine. He's great actually. He's in the shower. It worked like a charm. And best yet? He seems unstoppable now."

"He was nearly that before."

"Oh yeah. But now he's got an even bigger edge."

"Lord help us."

"The data looks clean Jill on the rate of infection and suppression but I can't be sure. If he starts to turn?"

"Yeah. I know the drill."

She hurried down the hallway to the community showers. It was just beyond the decompression chamber. Jill pushed open the door to find him under the spray and rinsing himself in the heated water.

He turned and met her eyes.

"You didn't die."

"Doesn't look that way."

She moved into the boiling water and grabbed him.

He threw her back against the wall hard enough to steal her breath. Desperate, she grabbed his face. Their teeth clicked with the hard kiss that followed.

She kicked her boots off, hearing them clatter in the shower somewhere. His hands were on her pants, jerking. She heard the zipper break and didn't care. He jerked them down her legs.

In her panties, she leapt and wrapped her legs around his waist. They didn't stop trying to eat each other's faces off. And he could smell the excitement in her blood now. Smell it and feel it fire through him like poison.

He jerked her panties to the side and shoved himself into her body. Jill cried out and grabbed his face, lifting and lowering herself on him. He fisted his hands in her hair and slapped her body against the tiles. They gasped, grunting, and the pleasure of that fast and furious ride robbed them both of something.

No more gentle softness and silk, this was facile and inflamed. It tortured as it took and blasted away the casual grace of their previous lovemaking. It blew a crater with a grenade on the floor of friendly flirting and sensual touch. Leon adjusted her, found the right angle, watched her scream and crashed his body into hers so hard that it sounded like slapping skin and wet thunder as it echoed through the empty shower.

Jill gave as good as she got, hooking her thighs around his hammering hips and rising and lowering to meet each desperate lunge and thrust inside of her. They were immersed in each other, thrilled and throaty and needy. He was the maestro of her body, playing her flesh and coaxing the right notes of want from her gasping mouth.

She forced his body to ride her so fast, so hungry, so raw that he could do nothing but obey. The artful lover was lost beneath the rising tide of raping need. He knew only the taste of her, the feel of her, the whipping wind of want that trumpeted down from the mountain of his own obsession with her blasted over them both, bringing a cry from his mouth that she absorbed with hers as she stole his tongue and gave him back a piece of her soul for it.

Her hands tunneled into his wet hair, she drew his face back to hold his eyes. She was making some high keening sound in her throat that spurred him on like a madman. She gasped, "Now. NOW."

And she came, bucking and jerking, and sucking him down into the bursting light she offered. It burnt them both, obliterating anything but the geyser of his own release that filled her full of his soulless and skin prickling greed for her. His body rode hers through the release, pushing that sticky heat inside of her slick center.

And he went to his knees still holding her on him.

They tumbled to the floor and laid there in the boiling water.

Her legs slid down his flanks and rested her feet on his calves. He rolled his body inside of her while he twitched, still coming down the other side of the heady release.

Jill said, softly, "You scared me."

"I wouldn't have hurt you. I would have jumped off the building first."

"Not that….I thought…I thought you'd die before I could get help for you. Shit." She put a hand to her face and breathed, "This is why you don't shit where you eat."

He pulled her hand away and held her gaze. "I'm ok. For now, Jill, I'm ok."

"Rebecca told you the deal?"

"Yes. Temporary fix. Band-aid. I've been here before. We move fast, we find the cure, we all live. It's the story of my life."

"I won't let you turn."

They held eyes, "I know you won't."

The water beat around them and they were back in Sri Lanka, laying in that bed and lost in each other. She rubbed her hands over his face while he pulsed inside of her. And her voice was soft, "I think you're going to take a piece of me with you if you ever go."

"That makes two of us." He dropped his mouth to kiss her and she rose, smooth and soft now. Gentle. And frightening.

Because she was desperately afraid she was in love with him. And they were now, officially, operating on borrowed time.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX: The Wicked and the Wanted

BSAA HEADQUARTERS

The dream is his burgeoning need. It fills and fires through his body and creeps, oozing, along the ground beneath his feet. The darkness echoes, filling his soul with a terrible delight.

The vision shimmers, showing him the path to the answers, and is lost beneath the teeming tastelessness of loss. The voices are there; beckoning. He knows he can accept them, embrace them, if he just puts down the sword.

The white is right and the night leaves the fight in his blood like putrid rot. It robs him, rapes him, empties and abandons him to sit screaming at the feet of forgetting like a desperate, hungry thing. He begins to decay, his hands and nails blackening and breaking and bursting away from his tortured flesh. The rot remains, eating and seeding the path of its destruction within the cage of his conscious mind.

He hears the voice, the voice, screaming his name. He turns back, crawls, falling to his face in the bathing burst of dark and loss. This is it, he muses, this is where the darkness has led him. It pulses, curling through him as it necrotizes and murders, maims and makes me him aware that this is where the warrior has come to die..if he can only get to them first….just once more…

He calls out that name…and the darkness echoes…shrieking.

….

The sweat and stench of his own fear awoke him. He jerked away, gasping, fighting and the gun in his hand was pointed at the woman across from him without even the most surreal form of thought. She stood there, naked, and lifted her hands.

"It's me…Leon? It's me." He could see each line of her flesh, each bend of elbow and each slope of breast. The pink and white of her was brutal to his budding hunger. She was, by turns, that which made him desire her blood and that which made him desire her body. That was the nature of beast, it seemed, to crave and covet the thing that one could kill or possess alternatively.

In the moonlight, he was frightening and beautiful in a way that she couldn't understand; the primal and primitive perception of what fight and flight became when one was trapped within its proverbial and eternal struggle. He was sweaty, glistening with it, and the sheets had twisted like blood and sin around his hips and leg. The other leg was left hanging to one side, pale and perfect amongst all the red. His hair had fallen, slick and wet, into one eye. The other shown silver in the encompassing darkness.

He was naked, resplendent, and managed to look ethereal even as he hovered and courted the wolf within him. It was the wolf, she mused, watching that face. He was the wolf he spoke of so often as they lay together in the quiet night. The wolf that radiated behind those eyes. The wolf was a predator, true, but it was also ambivalent about the need to kill. If you attacked, it destroyed you in a burst of blood and death. If you surrendered, it let you run and was content to watch you flee. The wolf was neutral and Leon Kennedy was the same. He'd kill you and never blink or he'd let you run. The choice was yours.

What surprised her the most was that he kept that gun on her. He didn't lower it. She tried again, "Leon, it's Jill. Jill Valentine. It's me."

She tried to shift and he tracked her with that gun. He tracked her, as the hawk will track the mouse before it strikes. As the wolf will track the prey before it runs. He was simply the thing that stalks the night and destroys even as it dissects.

Jill wasn't interested in dying here today and so she stood very still instead. "Wake up, Leon. Wake up now."

And she watched, watched those silver eyes bleed red in the pupil.

JESUS CHRIST.

The fear bled into her belly. It was thick and shamed her. If he was still in that body that she craved, was he even aware? Would the thing inside of him rape his shell and fill it with those things she'd seen inside that school? Would she have stare into his face while she destroyed him?

The idea was too murderous and too much. She wasn't ready for him to die like that. She wasn't ready to give him up. She didn't know if she'd ever be. She had to get him back. "WAKE UP, LEON! LEON KENNEDY!"

The shout did it. He shivered and the gun came down. He twitched and fell back on the bed. She stood very still, scared to death. She waited, waited, and realized he was sleeping. He had curled up on his side and peaceful.

She whispered, "Oh my god…oh god…"

Whatever was in him was terrifying. They had to get it out. Soon. The rate of metamorphosis was going to turn him into a monster. She couldn't abide it. She couldn't stomach it. She had to save him from that. Now. This minute. She needed Chris. She needed him. And she was afraid they'd never find him in time. Leon Kennedy had gone to save Chris in that jungle and it turned out Chris was the one needed to save him instead.

Jill moved toward the bathroom, quietly, so quietly. She was a little afraid to wake him now. It beat in her throat like butterfly wings. Quint was working on the location. It wouldn't be long. They could move as soon as tonight if they could find the coordinates.

Hold on, she breathed a little, hold on. We'll get you out of this.

Jill picked up her panties from the floor and bent to slip them on. She glanced at the mirror over the bed to check on him. And he was gone.

He was gone.

He wasn't in the bed.

She glanced up, horror movie slow, and he was RIGHT THERE. Her eyes rolled up the line of his body. He was beautifully, wonderfully, frighteningly naked standing there. And he was breathing in a slow, slow pant. She whispered, "Oh god…"

He grabbed her, impossibly quick, and lifted her off the floor in front of him until her feet dangled. She considered his face, frozen. She tried again, "Leon…don't."

But he wasn't Leon. Would he ever be again? He flashed his teeth and threw her. She went out, thrown like a dart. She made some sound and down she came. She bounced across the bed and rolled up and back through the motion of it. She went into a handstand and flipped to her feet.

The perfect storm, she thought once, and he was. He devastated even as she destroyed and demanded you acquiesce to your own destruction. There would be nothing left when he was through. He was already a master at his craft and they'd given him the frightening keys to some other part of his conscious mind. He was now half the best she'd ever seen and half nothing she'd ever seen before.

She pointed the pistol in her hands at him. And it killed her to do it. She'd grabbed it from the bed as she'd rolled. She was shaking and her hands were clammy. She saw now, in fine detail, why it was so very bad to shit where you ate. She had opened the door to the best thing she'd ever seen on two legs and the horror of what happens when the best goes bad. She knew, with a fighter's eye, that there was no way he could ever Darth Vader on them and go to the dark side. If he did? They were all fucked.

"Don't make me do this, " She whispered it, shaking, "Leon! Don't."

He stalked her, pacing beyond the bed. The wolf, she thought desperately, pacing and watching her. Could he do it all day? She shook her head, "Please. Just don't."

Her mind said: You gonna shoot him? Really?

She would. If she had to. She'd put him down. The idea put ice in her chest and in her stomach. Jill tried again, desperate. "Please. I'll get Rebecca to shoot you full of that shit she keeps pumping into you. I swear I will. Just let me go get her. Let me help you. Please."

He paused, studying her. His head tilted to the side now, watching her. She had to lower the gun, she knew, and he MIGHT stop. He might stop. But if she lowered the gun and he didn't? She was dead. Dead. Killed by the hands of the man who'd so recently used those hands to sculpt her body like a lover. She had to make a choice now…and she was afraid to see his beautiful face obliterated in a wash of blood.

For the first time, Jill Valentine was unable to look at the enemy and pull the trigger. She'd been the right hand of Wesker for so long. She'd stared into faces and killed like a possessed thing. She'd raged and ripped down the world to create the kingdom of darkness and death with him. She'd stood in his shadow and shattered the reality of her own mortality. She'd been his muse, his masterpiece, his unwilling worker bee that had crafted and coupled the doubt of her own humanity with the vision of his great new path to a perfect world. She'd been in the shell of her body screaming and lost and drawn to the dark with a nearly horrible hunger.

Was Leon Kennedy inside that shell? Was he aware? And what would it take to rip him back, screaming, into her arms?

No more time for questions, it seemed. He was tired of waiting.

He rushed her and she would have fired but he was too fast for that. It wasn't Wesker, not exactly. He didn't split space and time. He just moved like water, like pure speed. It wasn't human, and it was frightening. He rolled across the bed, all grace and agility, and knocked the gun from her hands like it was nothing. It was seconds and a lifetime in tandem.

She slapped at him and he caught her wrist. She tried again and he wrapped her hair around his palm and jerked, pulling her face back to him. Jill rotated, dropped an elbow, and broke his hold. She rolled back on the bed and kicked him. Her feet caught in his chest and shoved him into the wall.

She rolled across the bed and scrambled to the far side. He jumped on it, on all fours, and chased her. Jill made a sound of fear and ran for the door.

He was just there, blocking the door, and he smiled at her. Christ. Her belly burst with fear. She braced, watching him. He tilted his head and pushed off the door.

Oh god.

Jill breathed, dropped low to the ground. Time went slow, slow and she threw a sweep at his feet. He dove over her head, flawless. He grabbed her as he went, grabbed her braided hair and jerked. She went to her back on the floor. But she didn't stop, couldn't stop. She rolled up, into a handstand, and wrapped her thighs around his face.

He made a sound, half growl, half laughter. And she jerked him forward. He was tossed, easily, thrown by her own momentum. He hit the wall and slid down it, watching her.

He liked it. He liked the fighting. He liked her resistance. Giving up wasn't what he wanted. He wanted her to FIGHT.

"Please! Stop!"

He pushed off the wall, springing at her. She feinted left, rolled over his back, and hooked his ankle. It spilled him forward and he stumbled, spun, grabbed her around the waist and lifted her. She slapped him as she went up, tossed in the air like she weighed nothing. She slapped his ass. It was all she could reach. And he laughed again, delighted.

He caught her in his arms as she came back down and licked her breast.

OH GOD.

She drove a head butt into his face.

He dropped her before it could hit and she stumbled, going to one knee.

He grabbed her arms, jerked her up, turned her back against his front, put her face down into the mattress and jerked her arms behind her back. One series of flawless moves. He pinned her there on the bed and she could feel him looking at her. Looking? Or planning to eat her? Jesus Christ. She felt the fear ball thick and fast and deep in her belly. She tried to still it, knew he could probably sense it, and that it was just making this worse.

She spoke again, so very gently, "Leon...Leon Kennedy. Remember who you are."

His mouth nipped at her now. It nipped at her back, at the curve of her spine, at the top of her hip. His tongue tasted that delicate shell of one ear, suckled it, and his teeth tasted the side of one plump breast where she lay. She shivered, feeling the first soft shift of something else inside of that fear. Her mind said: he's still Leon Kennedy. You know that. He's in there. Get him out. Give him this and GET HIM BACK.

He ran one hand over her back and the delicate curve of her bottom. He stroked down the inside of her thigh. He parted her legs, just enough to look at her. She laid very still, like she was being watched by a predator. And she was…jesus she was. And yet her body liked it because it liked him. It liked his attention. It craved his touch. He was the fire and furious need that beat in her bones. Always.

He touched her, tracing the heat of her with one soft pass. She shook her head against the bed, denying. She didn't want to lie here like a victim to a…to a what? To a parasite inside of the body of the man she l—iked. Liked. A lot.

She tried again, hoarse and breathless, "Answer me. Tell me you're still there. Please. Fight this. Whatever this is. You can't be the guy who fights enormous mutants and falls down against something in your own blood. Leon…I need you."

In hindsight, that might have been the wrong phrase. It could be easily misinterpreted by something that was clearly trying to…mate? To what?

She froze as he parted the heat of her and rolled his tongue over her, just once, just one time. She gasped and the goosebumps burst across her skin. Christ. He was TASTING her. And he set his teeth, gently, into one perfect globe of her pert bottom. She gasped his name and tried to turn her head to see him. "Don't. Don't."

Don't what? Her mind said, Don't stop? That was mixed in there, oh yeah it was, but there was still that lingering edge of fear and something worse. Was it even him at all back there? Would it matter if it wasn't? Would she really part her legs and let whatever was using his body take her? She'd submitted, once, at Wesker's command to anything he'd required. She'd done things that would haunt her until the day she died and maybe beyond even then. Death was never the end of anything in the world where they dwelled.

He touched her, running a finger over the slick heat of her body. She shook her head again and wanted to speak but she was too focused on trying to still the fear before it found the growing edge of want in her body that was looking…seeking and suckling at the teat of the heavy and horrible ride he wanted. Was it the remnants of her time with Wesker that drew her to that sinful promise? Or her own desperate greed for him that filled her body like a demon and begged her to submit and offer back her soul?

He traced her again and she opened her mouth to speak but he hooked a thumb into her willing body. She would have said something, would have screamed, but she couldn't do anything but gasp. He rolled that thumb into the wet of her and stroked the core of her need. She made a small sound of fear.

It was the wrong thing to do. She knew it, the moment she did it, that making that mewl of fear was wrong, wrong, wrong. It excited him. She felt him shiver with it.

"Don't…" She whispered but it was too late. And there was no more time to decide if she wanted him or wanted away from him. Leon thrust himself into her body and she wasn't ready, she wasn't even remotely ready. And it seemed she had the voice to scream after all as he forced his way into the needy, wonderful, liquid heat of her. Her body tried to resist and she jerked, fighting him. Or fighting for him to finish? God, she didn't KNOW.

She screamed into the mattress and her body welcomed him like a fist, tight and snug; it beckoned him to move there and it was a traitor and a terrible thing. It welcomed him inside and made a home for him inside of her burgeoning need for him. Jill gasped, bucking back against him. Apparently, she was going to go with the wanting part of it. The fear remained, a powerful aphrodisiac. She gasped his name and felt him hold himself there, the battle won, the victory claimed. He held himself inside of her body and made her gasp and grunt like an animal beneath him. It was that, it was animals. The taking, the fighting, the submission. It was all animals, all primal, and all dirty and raw and exciting. She couldn't stop feeling the fear, didn't know how to stop feeling the lust, couldn't do anything but lay there spitted on his cock like a prize.

Finally, finally Leon jerked her hips, sliding and slapping into her body in an unholy ride. The angle was sharp and deep and fast. It rocked and robbed and rolled between them in a wet, wanton, merciless spill. He just started fucking her like he'd destroy her with it.

He fisted her braid in his hand and used her without concern for her at all. She was scared and turned on and dying. She gasped, cried out, as he found that spot in her and ran himself over it, into it, maddeningly deep. She was making some kind of soft cry into the mattress. It was part scream, part cry, part gasp of fear. That was what this was. This was lust and loss and the long pull toward the things inside of us that no longer care about what is right, what is wrong, and simply become what is necessary. Eat, sleep, breathe, mate: the four basic functions in a primal world.

And he was fucking her so deep, so hard, so endlessly that she was nothing more than a vessel for his waiting seed. She was the body that held him, the flesh that contained her own lust for him, he stripped away the confines of feeling and fear and replaced it with hunger; a pure and simple and saturating hunger that permeated each roll of his hips and each ride of his body inside of hers.

You could fight him off, her mind said, and her body answered: what the hell for?

So, she laid there and gasped and screamed while he raped her.

Raped her?

No. The wrong word. She hadn't been ready for him but she wasn't do anything but screaming his name and bucking back on him now. Rape was the wrong word. It was reluctance, at first, yes…but it was erotic and desperate. Like he was obsessed with her. Like he craved her. Like he had to have her no matter the response. It was a thing that raped, oh yes, but not her body that was sweaty and slapping against him while he defeated it. No, it was her soul, that was ripped screaming through her flesh and bound to his in a way that only nature could do. Mine, his body said, as it rode hers to the finish. MINE.

And then he put his teeth against her neck…and he bit down….just enough to steal her breath.

The excitement of it burst out of her mouth in a gasping moan.

He flipped her roughly to her back and came between her legs and pumped his body into her. She gasped, jerking, and grabbed his face. No red, she thought desperately, no red there now. Just him. Had it always been him? Had it been a trick of the light? She pulled him to her to kiss him. He went and drove his tongue into her mouth. They gasped, together, and his hands grabbed her hips to drive her further into the bed as he plowed through her, through her, and gave her no time to do anything but take him.

She didn't know, couldn't care, didn't want to care. She bowed, burst, and bled for him on the red, red sheets. And she came apart in his arms, screaming and burning. He was burning, she thought, that firey skin that was his normal now. It was fever bright and burning on her and in her. His body inside of hers was thick and nearly blinding hot. Like fire and blood and want between her thighs. Like a spear of flesh and fever inside of her, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting.

She gasped, his name, "Leon!"

And he was there, she thought, he was…because he gave her name back to her, in a hoarse, gruff and hungry hiss, "Jill."

They kissed, eyes locked and desperate.

That was it. She was done. She hit the orgasm and blew apart, splattering the walls and the ground with her desecrated flesh and bone. She was relatively sure she had exploded all over the place. She came, and came, bucking and gasping and crying out. He was with her, filling her full of himself as he chased the darkness back, and found the salvation of it in her body.

They slid together, sweaty and complete. He shifted, just enough to move the pulsing length of him inside the sticky chamber of their completion. Bound, they were now mated. And the victory of that mating was lost on neither. The feral fucking of it had burst something inside of the both of them. It was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the hottest sex she'd ever had. The surrender of it, the force of it, the pure and primal urge of it had left them both satisfied and throbbing.

She gasped, shivering, and would have stayed, she would have stayed there holding on to him…but he licked the sweat on her collarbone. And he ground himself inside of her body to feel that clamp of her around his sticky shaft. She made a little noise and he lifted his head to look into her eyes.

The roll of it inside of him was very real. Mine, it said, and he'd made her his. He'd won her and the right to mark her and possess her. She was his mate. She would submit now and succumb to the need in him to dominate her.

She made some sound and rolled out from under him.

He watched her go and licked his teeth, "…sorry."

"…hmm. Hmmm. Shit." The shivering in her thighs, the shivering in her belly. What was worse here? That she'd let him…force her? Or that she'd LOVED it. Oh god.

"Yeah."

"I like the intensity, hotshot, really. But you…"

"I scared you."

"Yes."

"I scared me too."

She looked at his face.

"Oh yeah. It's in there. The suppression works but apparently is lessened when you sleep. The dreams…jesus. I've had them all my life. But now? A hundred times worse."

"What dreams?"

"They chase me. They rule me. I can't fight them. They're leading me somewhere. I don't know where. But I have them. And I wake up, always, afraid. I wasn't afraid this time. I wasn't even awake. Not really. I was just…need."

He watched her shift away from him and it hurt him. He rose, hands out in front of him. "It's me. I swear to GOD it's me. It wasn't…and was…and I could…"

"….I get it. I do. You're talking about possession. The possession of it. You're talking about what happens when it comes up in your blood and steals your mind."

"Yeah. Yeah. Scary."

"Scary is the soft version of the word. But yeah, scary is about right. I've been there. I have."

"I won't hurt you."

She held his eyes. He shook his head.

"I won't. That much I could control. Whatever is in me, it wanted to hurt you. Like nothing I've ever known. But I can CONTROL it."

"You…hurt me."

And now she saw the shame on his face. She took a step toward him and stopped. He shook his head and rolled his head to his knees on the bed. And she felt really bad because he hadn't hurt her. Not really. It was just like good rough sex. He'd turned it into that, she realized, the thing in him probably would have drilled her right away otherwise. But he'd shifted it to good, rough, sweaty sex. Maybe that was all he could do at the time.

"I'm sorry….about that. I HAD to have you. And I always feel like that about you. Like I can't breathe without wanting you…but I HAD to have you right then. Like that. You were scared, you were down, and my body…it just wanted to mate with you. I'd conquered you. So, I got to mate with you. Does that even make sense?"

"Like a wolf?"

"Yeah. Like a wolf."

"Shit."

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"It's ok. It is. We're going to fix it. We just have to find Chris. And soon. GOD soon."

"I'm still me." He shifted toward her and she shifted away. He curled his hand into a fist and rose. She watched him move into the shower and breathed, breathed. She gathered her resolve and went into the bathroom after him.

"I shouldn't have done that."

He shook his head, "You're scared of me. I get it. I do."

Jill shook her head and moved in between his arms. He wrapped them around her and they held on. They both held on.

"I'm still me, Jill."

"I know that…but for how long?"

….

Rebecca Chambers had answers for them but it wasn't any they liked. They set in the field ops room being prepped for the mission to Antarctica. The feeling of fear was prevalent and encompassing. It filled them with a sense of dread and foreboding. And it was punctuated by Quint and Joel and Frannie and Jasmine coming and going as they were outfitted and measured and supplies were gathered.

Gertie and Mira were there along with Carlos Oliveira. Carlos and Jill had a long history of working together after Raccoon City. He had guarded here while the T-Virus had raged and rampaged through her body. He'd been loyal ever since, joining the fight against that which he'd once stood with. He was a dedicated and well-meaning man, skilled in heavy weaponry and well known for his ability to hot wire anything with an engine when emergency escape was a priority.

Jill often took him along on missions when Chris wasn't available. He was a jokester, notoriously, and well known to flirt with anything in a skirt. His "legendary" lady skills were honed by a handsome face and a smooth and carefully coiffed head of hair the color of good red oak.

Leon didn't particularly like the way he looked at Jill. He had a smile and a devil-may-care demeanor that irked Leon to no end. He slid his tongue over his teeth, tracking the other man as he went from woman to woman, laughing and winking.

Rebecca was preparing another round of the suppression cocktail she'd created. She said, offhandedly, "It's progressing faster than I'd anticipated. I can stop it, Agent Kennedy, but it may limit your abilities more than you'd like."

"Natural or extended?"

"The extended ones. Out of curiosity…what do you see right now?"

Leon slid the sunglasses off his face. They'd been Rebecca's suggestion. The iris of his eyes had bled red at the top and it was a bit disconcerting. He scanned the room, tracking, and Rebecca watched the intelligence and the rigorous control on his face. Impressive, she mused, to stand in the presence of someone who could both kill you and outsmart you without breaking a sweat.

"I can see blood, arteries. I can trace the path from one organ to another. I can see more than ten different ways to kill you where you stand."

Rebecca gulped a little but nodded, mixing samples and supplies. "I see. And the rest of your senses?"

"To be fair, I could kill you ten different ways before this. So that's not much of a change."

Rebecca met his eyes. "Scary."

"It's hard to be me."

"I imagine."

"I can smell that you're nervous. I can smell Carlos and his interest in Jill. I can smell Quint and his desire for Mira. His lust is pungent. It smells like oil and sulfur."

They were all the way across the room. Rebecca glanced at them. "Everyone knows Quint wants her."

"I can smell the blood in his groin for her."

"….gross."

Leon laughed and nodded. "I can taste J—the last woman I kissed. Still. I can taste her in my mouth like she's still here. It's coupled with this…."

"Urge to mate?"

He met her eyes and nodded.

"Yes. It's primal and feral. It's part of the process. Try not to be frightened."

"Not frightened. Getting unnerved a little though."

"Have you tried fighting yet? It would be interesting to know what you move like know."

His eyes darted to Jill and held. Carlos was touching her arm. She was laughing at him. The blood in Leon's body was so hot. So hot. He wanted to rip that smiling face off and bathe in the shower of his blood.

Jesus.

Rebecca saw his hands clench and unclench. She followed his gaze. Ah. The catalyst to an alpha male was a lower pack member sniffing around his mate. It was best that Carlos know what was happening here.

"I'm faster. Smoother."

"You were both before."

"…I'm not afraid. Of anything. I can't…my brain doesn't understand fear. I know it's there. I guess. But I can't make sense of it."

"You were before?"

He met her eyes, "Sometimes."

Rebecca nodded and patted his arm, "Give me a minute and I'll suppress that. Hopefully."

Rebecca moved toward Jill. She pulled her arm and separated her from Carlos. "Carlos is the wrong choice for your mission."

"What?"

"Leon is jealous of him."

"…what?" Jill felt stupid and blinked a lot.

"Leon is jealous. He's jealous. Maybe he wouldn't be usually. But this thing in him? It seems to open him to his feelings more. I don't usually insert myself into other people's business but I need to know if you're sleeping with either of them."

Jill held those little blue eyes. There was no perverted curiosity here, just the scientist. And the one who was helping the man she…loved. Because she loved him. And it scared her.

"I'm sleeping with Leon."

"Ok. Not Carlos?"

"No. Never."

"Ok. Can you please take Leon some place quiet and explain that? While I prepare the suppression? And consider bringing another agent with you. Making an alpha male jealous of a subordinate won't help. It will hinder."

Jill looked over at him on the table. She gestured with her head. He nodded and moved over toward the far door. They stepped together into the hallway.

Jill glanced around, considered, and drug him off to the neighboring office. She closed the door and turned back to face him.

"You have to stop."

"What?"

"You have to stop being jealous of Carlos. There is NOTHING there. Ever. Look at me."

He did, cocking his head. He was listening or something to her. Listening to the need in her, the blood in her, the truth of it. The fucking human lie detector was now graced with the ability to smell it if you lied.

"He wants you." Leon lifted his hand and cupped the side of her breast. She blinked, watching his face. He rolled the feel of her there, in his palm.

She answered, softly, "That's his problem."

"Hmm." His head came down and hers came up. Transfixed, she kissed him while they watched each other. Jesus, she thought, she was letting him grope here in the office at work. What was happening here?

He touched her mouth and rolled his tongue there…what? Begging? Was it like that? Was he begging for her attention?

His other hand closed around the base of her beck and tilted her mouth up to him.

She finally drew away, shaking. "I don't want Carlos." It was soft, so soft, and seemed like a whisper in the quiet room.

"I know that. Just me."

"Just you."

"And yet you're scared of me."

"Not you. Not you. What's in you? Yeah."

"And yet…" He tilted his head again, "You want it. Would you let me turn you to this wall and fuck you? Right now? While your coworkers wait for us in the next room?"

"…no."

He studied her face. She took a step back. "No. You have to do better than this, Leon. Get it together. Now."

He dragged her back to him by her neck. She put both hands on his chest. "Stop. Now."

And she sounded firm, which was really good. He rubbed his nose against hers. She relented, relented enough to let him kiss her once more. Wet, wet, and very deep. He put his tongue inside of her mouth and she made a little sound of need.

He let her go, smiling now. "He can come with us."

"Just like that?"

"You are mine. He doesn't matter." And he passed by her into the hallway.

….asshole. She stood there for a long moment. What…what right did he have to talk about her like that? Like she was some possession? Like she was some THING he owned. What a fucking assh—

He put her against the wall of the hallway and blew her brains out of her ass. She came up from five minutes of tongue and teeth and inappropriate tonsil hockey, with one leg wrapped around him and her body rubbing all over his.

Well that was embarrassing. Mine, he'd said. Turned out he was right. She grabbed his ass in her hands and rubbed him against her. They both made sounds of excitement.

"It cuts both ways, hotshot. MINE."

"Yes. I want only you."

"What about what is in you? You said mate before."

"The urge to mate is…something. It's strong. But it wants a dominant female. I can control the want."

"For now."

He met her eyes. "I won't betray you."

"I trust you."

"The fever…it wants me to pull your pants down and fill you up. It wants me to fuck you, screaming, while your friends watch."

"…the parasite in you is a dirty pervert?"

Leon laughed a little and traced her jaw line, "It wants me to mate while the pack watches. A right of passage."

"You mind if we don't? I doubt I'd live that down."

"Maybe it would make YOU the legend."

Jill laughed.

She held his face, "Stay with me. Please. I can't watch this thing destroy you. I love you."

He blinked at her. She kissed his mouth, "I love you, Leon Kennedy. I need you to stay with me."

"Mine."

"Oh yeah. Ohhh yeah." And they both laughed a little bit. He kissed her mouth again. They held eyes and he finally stepped away.

He went back into the prep room.

Mira was watching him. He rolled his head toward her. She made a little sound.

"I'd say it's not you…but it kinda is."

His grin was wolfish and very…sexy. Yeah, Mira thought, sexy. He was looking at like he'd eat her up. She was simultaneously turned on and frightened. It was a heady feeling.

Gertie said, "Pretty scary right?"

"I don't know. I like it."

Carlos replied, smiling, "That's because you're a big adrenaline slut."

"True story. It's the emphasis on bondage right now as a form of entertainment. It made me all kinds of crazy to get slapped and hurt during sex."

Quint stepped over to Leon and held out his hand. In it was the Xenodysmorphia. Leon met his eyes. "I can't use it. It would work on me now, right?"

Quint shook his head, "I modified it using your DNA. It's coded to work on everything but you now. You're safe."

"Thank you." He took it and put it in the vest pocket. The blood red shirt he wore beneath heavy combat vest was fitting, Jill thought. He belonged in a bold color like that. It matched those eyes. God.

Rebecca said, loudly, "Here's what we know so far. This virus we're fighting? It's G but not G. It's Veronica but not Veronica. It's something else. Until I can analyze what that something else is? We're going up against something half cocked. I can't promise you what you'll see if it's been released there. I want you all to wear respirators."

Leon lifted a brow.

"Even you. You've been exposed but we can't guarantee what the transmission rate would do if we let you inhale it. Once you know the area is clear from infection, you can take it off."

Leon nodded, rolling his neck and shoulders. His back was tight and watching Carlos touch Jill was about to set off alarms he didn't want ringing. She wasn't interested, true, but the idiot wasn't getting the message. He touched her shoulder and she laughed at something he was saying.

"The infection is spread by inhalation and clearly by bite. The raid on the school brought back a ton of living subjects. We are studying them as fast as we can. Ordinarily I wouldn't be comfortable sending a team to anywhere until I had an inoculation for you. But Agent Kennedy is on borrowed time here. We need Chris and we need him yesterday."

Jill was strapping on the bulletproof armor vest over her blue underarmor. "How much time does he have? Truthfully?"

"At this rate? A week might be hopeful. You've got five days, maybe less, before I won't be able to stop it. You'll take the suppression injections with you and he'll need one if he exhibits any symptoms outside the norm."

"What the hell is the norm here, Rebecca? Eight hours ago he was Leon Kennedy."

He turned his eyes to Jill and held her gaze. "I'm still fucking Leon Kennedy."

The room was quiet now, looking at him. He was…and he wasn't. Leon Kennedy was always charming and always polite and always good natured. He was…and he wasn't.

"…I know that," She said quietly, "But you're slipping. I don't want to take you along to watch you turn. Can we keep him here in stasis until we get back?"

"Possibly."

"No."

Jill opened her mouth to say something and he shouted it, startling her. "NO!"

He leapt off the table and it was quick, and scary. "I won't stay. And you won't put me in that fucking tank like a tyrant. I'm still me. And I can go fight whatever is down there a hundred times better than anyone else here. So here's the plan: I go, I fight, if I turn? You put me down. But in the mean time? It's better me than any of you if there's a moment where we have to sacrifice right? The bigger picture here is getting the antibodies for the vaccine. This shit leaks out, you'll have bigger problems than whether I die. You're talking about more than school here. We blasted the shit out of that thing, Jill. It didn't die. Worse yet? It didn't CARE. I've never come up against something that couldn't die. If I can't kill it? What makes you think Joe Nobody can?"

"You arrogant prick, you think you can tell me what's the right thing here? You're too fucking important to risk down there, Leon. I've never seen anyone, anywhere move like you. If we can keep you alive, in that fucking tank, you'll go in there. Because you're BSAA now, and guess what? I'm your SUPERIOR."

He blinked at her. The room was quiet, watching them. Jill spoke again, softly, "Your value to this organization supersedes your need to play the hero. That's what it means to be part of a team, Kennedy. So fall in line."

"What value?"

"I've seen you move, I've watched you. I know why Barry spent so long trying to get you. You can train and teach and mold here and make a difference. You can't do that dead."

"I'm not dying, Jill. Not today."

"Not if you're here and safe, no."

He turned to Rebecca now, "Get me something that works as a lethal injection."

Jill shook her head. He pointed at her. "It's the right thing here. It is. I need something to make sure you can kill me BEFORE I turn. And you know, and I know, that what could be down there is what we faced in that hallway. It nearly killed me. But it won't be able to kill me now. And now? Now I can STOP it, Jill. Don't be stupid. You said you needed me. You do. Let me do my fucking job here."

Rebecca nodded and turned back to her equipment.

Jill held his gaze for a long moment. She finally shook her head and turned away. Mira stepped up beside him.

He glanced down at her.

"I'll put you down, handsome, if you go Anakin Skywalker on us. No problem."

"Thank you."

"Sure. You survive this, you want to get dinner some time?"

He grinned now. "It's a helluva risky thing to ask a man infected with an unknown virus out on a date."

"I like to live on the edge."

Leon laughed, looking at her pretty face. He could see the blood in her. He could smell it in her groin. She wanted to spread those legs and let him fuck her. He could throw her down right now and mount her, hold her throat in his hand while she screamed. She'd buck, afraid and loving it, he'd use her and fill her belly with his seed.

He said, "Christ. My blood is burning."

Mira opened her eyes and rolled her lip under, "Yeah?"

"Oh yeah."

"Awesome." She whispered it, watching his mouth. She ran her hand over his inner arm. He watched her, head cocked, tracking her movements.

Rebecca coughed and shoved the needle in his neck. He jerked, gasped, and she hit the plunger. The fire in his blood cooled and became a dull ache. He couldn't see the blood in her anymore. And he could feel himself again inside his body.

Rebecca commented, "Mira, honey, this is not the time to hit on a man operating on primal instinct."

Mira answered, shivering, she ran her fingers over his arm again, playing with fire.

"Jesus. I think I'll risk it."

Rebecca queried, "Better?"

Leon nodded. "Infinitely. Thank you."

"Sure. Once every eight hours or so ok? Don't forget."

"I won't. I swear."

Mira studied his face. He held that look. She said, softly, "You're something, aren't you?"

"That's the rumor."

"I fucking LOVE an alpha dog."

And now he laughed, delighted with her. "The woman I'm seeing might not like it if I said yes."

"Yeah? What's your real answer?"

"I'd have said yes and had you on that table over there two weeks ago."

"Shit. Two weeks? She's not worth the trouble in that short space of time. Forget her and let's play hide the salami."

They both laughed. And Jill watched them, curious. And then Mira touched his elbow. And she watched those eyes track the movement. Oy. Mira was such a flirt.

He set the timer on his watch for the suppression injections. Gertie was waiting in the aircraft for them. Mira and Carlos started to load up the gear. They were taking submachine guns, pulse and shock grenades, flash and standard. They were taking shotguns and pistols. They were taking knives and blind faith.

Quint hefted the katana in his hand and offered the ivory hilt to Leon. He glanced at it and at his face.

"I heard you know what you're doing."

"I do."

"If you do this…" Quint grabbed the handle and twisted it. It popped a secondary blade out of the back in. "You go from Leon Kennedy to Darth Maul."

"Sweet."

"The blade is infused with vaccine properties for the viral strains we are aware of."

"You're giving me a sword that cures viruses?"

"It's like the holy fucking grail of weapons dude. If I could figure out how to harness it into a bullet, we'd be golden."

Leon studied his face. "I have a feeling you'll get there."

"I'm close. I need to watch more Underworld to figure out how they get sunlight in there. And I'll have it made. I have a prototype but no one will test it out for me."

"I'll test it out for you."

"Yeah?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Hold on…."

Leon strapped the sword across his back as Quint went to get the gun. He brought it back toward him. It had a short muzzle, like a snub nose, and resembled a .38 Revolver. "Ok, so look…" He opened the wheel and showed the bullets. They were filled with red liquid, "This bad boy is called the Sumbitch."

"…that's a terrible name."

"Yeah…it's a prototype. Just listen."

"Sorry."

"The Sumbitch has six bullets. That's it! The cocktail inside is syndicated similar to what's on your sword. It harnesses viral weaponry and vaccination and manifests it in a physical state…a bullet. Clearly. I don't know if it will do a damn thing. But logically? It's like sticking an adrenaline shot full of cure into an infected host."

"Would it kill BOWS?"

"Seemingly. The flaw comes from if it will do anything at all or if it would CURE them instead."

"I see. So, I shoot an infected host and they die…or they simply revert back to being…what human?"

"Impossible in cases where the host was never human. Such as hunters or lickers, for example. But if I was infected and you shot me? Maybe. MAYBE. I won't know until someone tries it. But the preliminary effects were positive."

Leon holstered the weapon. "Thanks. I'll let you know how she does."

"Awesome. I don't know why anyone hasn't been willing before. Honestly. I only had a gun blow up ONCE."

Leon held that look.

"…it was a long time ago, swear."

"Hmm."

"Cool…Hey…so…protect Mira for me ok?"

Leon smiled and patted his shoulder.

"Get back here quick dude. I can't be the only handsome man around. The ladies will eat me alive."

And now he laughed, shaking hands with him. "Without a doubt."

Joel strapped a little pack on him. "This is the lethal injection you wanted. It'll kill an elephant. Don't fucking use it and be a hero, dude. Just in case."

Quint considered this, "You see Wesker or something down there…use it on him."

Joel nodded, "Yeah. That's probably ok. Or like…one of those big sumbitches you faced in Spain. Those uh…giant fat things?"

"El Gigante?"

"Yeah those."

Quint added, "Or the dudes with the claws for hands."

"Yeah those too."

Joel considered things, "Also use it on that thing Chris went up against. That used to be Excella Gionne."

"Oh shit yeah. And anything T-Abyss." Quint retorted.

"For sure." Joel assented.

"You see Lansdale, use it on him too." Quint added.

"Yep. But kick him in the balls first."

Quint finished their diatribe by adding, "Yeah. Definitely kick him square in the fucking balls."

Leon nodded, grinning a little. "Got it. Remember to keep the ladies happy while I'm gone gentlemen. I leave their lovely needs in your very capable hands."

They watched him move toward the plane. "That dude is probably the coolest cat around."

Joel nodded and his no filter kicked in, "Shame he's probably gonna die down there."

"Nah. Dude's Leon Kennedy. He doesn't die. He just…"

"Saves the day?"

"Yeah. Exactly."

"Fucks all the chics?"

"That too, man. You seen Mira around him? Stupid."

"Jealous?"

"Hell yeah."

Joel snickered.

Leon leapt onto the plane and the cargo doors rolled closed. They settled down, locking in belts and getting comfortable. Gertie lifted off easily and had them in full flight after a rocky take off.

Carlos and Mira were talking quietly together. Leon had set up shop against the far wall in the furthest corner. Jill watched him as he disassembled the gun Quint had given him and studied the bullets. The intelligence on his face was awesome. She could see him putting together the creation of it, the concept of it, and the execution of it. Why wasn't he a science geek? She'd read the reports, she'd seen the studies. He was a genius. He was amazing, the best she'd ever seen in the field, but his brain? THAT was where the power was here.

He could sit down with Rebecca Chambers and leave behind the fight. He could change the world. Why was he still running and gunning?

Jill used the pull along the top of the cargo plane to walk toward him. He glanced up as she came over and down again. She felt something from him that she didn't like. Once the suppression injection had been done, he was himself again. And there was that lingering sense of something different about it.

Jill settled down beside him. "You don't have to sit so far away from everyone else."

"Why not? You don't trust me, clearly. It's safer here for everyone."

She met his eyes, held them. "I trust you. You want me to trust the shit inside of you?"

"No. But I'm still me. Stop acting like I'm dead."

Oh. That was it. She'd gone against him back there. He was pissed. And worse, yet, he was offended. Jill gritted her teeth a little. And there was something else on his face now. She turned a little and knelt in front of him. "Look at me."

"I'll leave the glasses on. This is why Wesker did it right? So you wouldn't have to look into his fucking monster eyes."

"….look at me."

He lowered the glasses. She grabbed his wrist above his glove. "I won't let that happen to you. I won't. I can't watch you die like that. I will fight with you, for you, and beside you. But you have to trust me."

"Does it cut both ways?"

She rubbed her thumb over his fevered skin. "Yeah. It does. Promise me, right now, you'll tell me if you start to lose your fucking mind."

"I promise."

"That's the only way this works. We're in this together." She brushed their fingers together and wanted to hold his hand. "Together, Leon. I won't leave you, I won't put you down. This time? You get to let me be the hero and save the girl."

"I'm the girl?"

"…you're everything."

He held her gaze and rolled his palm. They locked hands. "Stay with me, Leon. And show me what you can do."

"Deal."

And she smiled, softly. Mira, watching them, saw the moment he smiled back at her. She bumped Carlos with her elbow. He glanced over, lifted his brows, and said, "Hubba Hubba."

"Right? Doin it."

"Oh yeah. Big time uglies bumping in that direction."

"Shit. I wanted him for myself. Now I can't."

"Why?"

"I don't fuck other girl's dudes. DAMN! I haven't been this sad since they stopped making my dildo."

"Why was it discontinued?"

"Oh yeah. Electrocution deaths."

"….terrifying."

"Right? You're fucked getting fucked. Insane."

"The eternal struggle."

"I bet he fucks like he's going to electrify you."

Carlos glanced at him and snickered a little. "He's handsome."

"So?"

"Usually when a guy looks like that, he doesn't feel the need to try in bed. I should know."

"…are you a lazy fuck in the sack, Carlos?"

"Sometimes. Girls just get on top and do all the work."

Mira snickered.

Jill lifted her other hand to touch the side of his face. He glanced at the other two. "They'll figure it out."

"I don't care."

"Shit, me either." And that wasn't like him. He couldn't blame the infection in him. That was just how he'd always felt about her.

He put his mouth to hers and they held, for a long moment. "Don't fucking die on me, Leon Kennedy."

"I don't plan to."

The flight was long and arduous. Outside the window the winter wasteland was upon them. It impacted the vision and limited the range of visibility for Gertie. She countered by flying lower and instituting measures to reduce noise and navigation distress.

There was little that could be seen in any direction. They rose and dressed in cold weather gear. The heavy weather jackets were all insulated and had pockets and access points for weaponry and ease of use. You could get to your gun without pulling off your insulation. Hats and gloves followed until all the athletic, able bodies on the plane were covered in poof and pomp.

The cold could be felt as Gertie taxied down adjacent to the facility. There was a bump, a shiver, and the engine hummed to keep the heat pumping. She emerged behind them, watching them all with narrowed eyes.

"It looks like the Fight Club version of A Christmas Story back here. Who's going to start yelling Ralphie!?"

Mira chuckled inside her huge jacket.

"Clearly I'll wait here with the plane. Unless you think you'll need me?"

Jill shook her head. "Wait. God knows if something happens, we'll need an extraction, fast."

"Agreed."

The cargo door opened and the cold came in. It trumpeted down the opening with a frigid kiss that stole your breath. The snow swirled and struck like wet needles, smacking any exposed skin with a promise of hypothermia and dead tissue. They all wore goggles and covered any part of skin they could.

The snow was calf deep. The heavy boots and fear weighed them down as they trudged toward the building in the distance. It was dense and deep and hard to see amongst the swirling and blinding snow storm. The winds were merciless, slapping and stopping the heart where they hit, forcing the group to huddle together with limited to no visibility.

The door they came upon was half buried in snow. Carlos was using the heat gun in his hand to emit a laser and carve a way through. A glance at the horizon showed nothing but gray sky and blinding white. Within an hour, the snow blindness here would drive a mortal man insane, forcing the eyes to hallucinate things that had likely never been.

The chill and ache of the bone breaking cold bled into the brain and offered a release. Lie down, it beckoned, I will embrace you and help you forget. No doubt, Leon mused, if you lay amongst the tempting promise of that fluffy white welcome, you would never get up again. The cold would kill you, freezing your flesh and blood in moments.

The response time to fight or process flight here was limited. He was good, he was better with the infection in his blood, but he wouldn't be able to save them all. If they were ambushed, they were dead. He'd only be able to protect one of them. The savior inside of the man was appalled to know that he'd sacrifice the other two for Jill.

She was getting to him in ways that were scary. I love you, she'd said. And he believed her. He loved her as well. Probably that moment she'd come out of the water on that beach. He'd loved her. How did he equate that love with what was happening here? He was going to sacrifice others for her. And he didn't feel any remorse about that at all. That wasn't the infection…that was just him. He was made to commit, made to finish the cause, made to win the race. When he went, he went completely in. And she'd slipped into his arms in the Mylan Jungle and stolen his heart. That was it. They were cooked. It was finished. Now he had to get the fuck out of this mess so he could find a way to make sure they could work together and make it work.

The building itself offered little respite from the chill. Within the frigid corridors, something was breeding and beckoning. The truth tempestuously offered a crooking fingering, beckoning even as it danced away, clever and playful.

The steel and cold stone that housed the truth was half buried in snow. The plane that Claire Redfield had arrived in so many years before was still there, a skeletal hollowed out shell of titanium and steel. It rose above them like a dragon guarding the gates, offering the viewer the idea of what she'd seen, felt, and feared when she'd crashed here so long ago. The facility had been largely destroyed by the self destruct sequence she and Chris had initiated but pieces of it remained. The shell of the plane and the main floor of the building was largely in good repair. The great portion of damage had taken down the lab and the data and specimens contained within.

What was the likelihood of anything remaining that could help them here?

This emptied carcass was picked clean. It was buried in snow and obliterated. What were they thinking? Who would come to this vacant cavity and hope to find the answers?

But they'd underestimated Umbrella. Because the answers were still there. The self-destruct sequence was, like all things Umbrella, imperfect. There was enough left here to house the answers. They were just going to have to dig for it.

Hopefully not literally.

Leon shifted his body inside the heavy gear. He moved to the farthest available door and tried it. But the steel was warped and bent, sealed shut with ice. He gestured and Carlos was there, using the heat gun.

They entered the far room and found they weren't alone.

The cold had frozen them, true, but the zombies that littered around them still made attempts to move. They moaned and their voices were lost on the rising wind. They were nothing more than chrysalises of ice and death.

Mira made a sound in their headsets and behind their respirators, "Is this what death looks like in subzero temperatures?"

They moved passed the corpses without any trouble. The room was a long narrow room clearly meant as a bunk area. The beds were frozen and tilted. The elements hadn't been kind here.

The far door was already open. Someone had cut through it.

Carlos said, "It's never good to find out somebody has already been in a place."

Jill answered, "It is actually. If it's Chris, we know he was here recently. That door is still warm."

"And if it's not?"

"We're walking into a trap. When is that ever a surprise?"

"Good point."

The cold had them moving both slower and faster. And there was little more than a ladder amongst snow to beckon them in the room beyond. The roof had almost caved in here from the subsequent blast. It had destroyed wall and ceiling, leaving gaping holes for the driving snow to fill and fall upon.

Leon said, "Me." And went to the ladder.

He pulled a pulse grenade and dropped it into the chute.

They waited, heard it go off, and waited some more. When the silence remained, Leon went down the ladder first.

He leapt clean at the bottom. And the first thing he noticed was that this wasn't a piece of the former lab. This was something else entirely. Someone was LIVING here.

The area was a bomb shelter or an under ground…community? There were beds and rows of tables and chairs. It looked like someone had taken up residence here. He could see books and crayon drawings hanging on walls. There were textbooks and maps, tools stashed in one corner, and coats hanging on the wall.

Jill leapt down after him.

Mira and Carlos came next.

It was warm and there was a fire crackling close by.

A long corridor went to one side. It was empty here. But it hadn't been long ago. Leon pulled the Genesis even as they all started to remove the bulky cold weather gear. He scanned the area and the Genesis pulled up a blueprint.

"This is the storm shelter. It's three levels and wasn't caught in the blast when the self-destruct went off. The employees in the facility used it as secondary housing during ice and strong wind. It's powered by solar energy, hence why the heat is still working here and the lights. And it was supposed to have been cleared when the remains of this place were raided after Claire and Chris were here."

"Somebody is still here." Carlos remarked.

"Or they were recently."

Mira moved toward the hallway in her uniform and vest. Her protective under armor was pink, bright and perfect. It suited the ugly gray uniform. Carlos was wearing black and green. Jill wore her signature blue. Leon, in the red, felt a bit like Power Rangers as they inspected the area.

The cup of tea on a rickety table was still warm.

"Someone is close by."

"Chris?"

He scanned with the Genesis. It identified heat signatures on the next level down. "Only one way to know for sure."

They toward the long hallway. Leon pulled his pistol, signaled with his hand, and they fell back. Carlos brought up the rear and the other two kept at his three and nine. They moved together like a unit, no exposure.

He counted off silently with his fingers and pushed open the door at the end of the hallway. It was a library. Floor to ceiling shelves and books and beautiful sculpted wood. The detail was incredible. It was soft lighting from the hanging pendulum of a chandelier in the center of the cathedral ceiling. The walls were lined with what had to be works of master craftsman and painters. There was a Grandfather clock nearly teen feet tall directly next to the double staircase that offered the viewer access to the second floor balcony of the incredible room.

Spotless, beautiful, the peaked ceiling had hinges across the scattered stars painted there. It opened. Why?

There was a large golden globe in the center of the room. It had latin inscribed along it and was covered in constellations. The exterior ring that circled it had notches, clearly meant to be fitted into the interior globe. Did they think there would be no puzzle in which to halt their progress?

Mira and Carlos moved up the stairwell to clear the next level. Jill was at the huge oak desk near the far wall. She was shifting through papers. Leon studied the globe, tracing the constellations with his fingers. He glanced up at the hinged ceiling and rotated the golden world beneath his palm. One piece of the ring settled into a part of the constellation LACERTA.

The ceiling groaned. Mira paused on the stairs. Carlos listened.

Jill glanced up.

And the floor beneath them shifted.

Leon lifted a brow. What was the puzzle here? He studied the constellations. Perseus, Ursa Minor…Andromeda, Bootes…what was the pattern?

He shifted his eyes to the ceiling, studied the patterns there. Jill was looking through papers for the answers. The answer was usually simple if not always obvious.

Leon studied the room as he walked, looking at the architecture and at the spill of imagery on the walls. It was death. Death was cleanly and beautifully laid out across the canvas lined there. The image of death that first drew his attention clearly sixteenth century. It was beheaded bodies and tortured victims bound to wheels and being beaten. Others were bound to stakes and being burnt alive. The plaque beneath the photo read Bedburg.

He turned his attention to the next image. It was a naked body on the floor of the forest. The body was being stroked with a salve of some kind. The villagers and clearly the night was beckoning the body. Yellow eyes watched from the trees, hungry. The plaque said Caud.

The next showed a man hanging to his death from a post. It displayed the head of a wolf atop his body. The body of a direwolf lay across the open burning pit before him as she strangled. The villagers held pitchforks above their heads in rage. The plaque said Ansbach.

The final image was a man in a kneeling circle. The signs of witchcraft were abundant. And the image of a wolf shown clean and shimmering, like a ghost, above his head. Beneath the image, the plaque said Estonia.

Leon turned back to the globe. And there was the pressure in his body. It was in his blood, his brain. A wolf, a wolf, that was the connection here. He was the wolf. The wolf was in him. It was lycanthrope and it wasn't. It was a virus but it was making vampires and werewolves. What was the missing link? What was connecting science and mythology here?

Underworld, Quint had joked, and he was right but he wasn't. It was science and science had found the door to cultism. As clearly shown here. Someone had turned, first a victim of whatever was inside of him, and turned others with them. The virus adapted, latching onto their DNA to shift and mutate. It was Veronica more than G. G granted immortality in one hand. Veronica? It offered the ability to become something else. Something darker and deeper and uglier. It didn't make you a monster, not right away, but coupled with the missing link? It was capable of creating the perfect warrior. The wolf. Neutral and commanding. The vampire, immortal and invincible. No death by the head, he mused, no…the vampire could only be killed by the heart. They would have to kill them with a heart blow. And it would probably need to be cold steel.

He glanced at the katana. Quint had known that. It was the reason for the sword.

Clever, clever boy.

And the wolf?

He caught a glimpse of his face in the golden globe. The wolf?

The wolf could be killed with a silver bullet, they said. It was well known throughout history. That silver and the metal of the moon was the death and rebirth of the wolf combined. There was no silver here. He turned and studied the candle stick on the desk. He moved to it, pulled off his glove as he moved. Or was there?

Jill watched him, "Leon?"

"Wait."

He grabbed the candle stick in his bare palm.

The pain was sharp, it was deadly, it was immediate. He couldn't drop it. It seemed to burn and bleed and blend into his hand and try to kill him where he stood. He made some kind of roar or something because Jill jerked it from his hand and the other two had guns on him.

It clattered to the floor with a clang of metal.

Leon lifted his hand and the perfect outline of it was welted on his palm.

Jill grabbed his hand and opened her pack. She put burn cream on him, shaking her head. "What the hell was that?"

"I had to know."

"Know what?"

"How to fight them."

She lifted her brows.

"It's wolves, Jill. And science but not. It's history but mythology. Jill…it's their weakness…and mine."

Carlos queried, confused, "Candles?"

Idiot. Leon shook his head, "No. Silver. The metal of the moon. And cold steel for the others. Not the head, Jill…the heart. They aren't zombies. They are something else. The heart."

"The thing in the hallway?"

"It's a vampire…kinda. And a wolf…kinda. It's both. And it's backed by G and Veronica and that unknown component. We can't stop it without knowing what's in there. But we can FIGHT it. With manmade simplicity. The flaw is the mythology."

Mira was watching his face. "You are something."

"I have my moments."

Jill laid her hand over the gauze on his burnt flesh. "Don't do that again."

"The gloves may stop the burn."

"DON'T touch it again."

She wrapped his hand with the cream and the gauze and bound it to him by helping him put his glove back on. She moved with him to the golden globe. They studied it together.

And finally, Jill said, "I know the answer."

She turned the circle, shifting it, spinning it on the axis with a rolling squeal of metal. It clicked and settled into the constellation she'd chosen: LUPUS.

Leon said, quietly, "Of course. The wolf."

The room jerked, the ceiling made a clicking pop as the hinges released. It squealed with gears rotating and parted, slowly opening. The peaked roof clearly extended out of the ground and above it. It offered the view of snow mounded to the sides and a clear view of the wide open sky above that. The sun was there, muted by the graying and thick clouds. But it winked between, and the rays split through the window. They landed, hitting the globe. The light activated a trigger in the room spun, almost impossibly fast. Jill grabbed him, he went to one knee and she held on. Carlos and Mira grabbed the staircase railing and waited.

And the room stopped spinning.

The door behind the desk was an archway now and it was wide open. It looked like a temple there beyond it. Or a church. And it was waiting for them to walk in.

Thrown against his chest, Leon eased Jill back to see her face. "Ok?"

"Yeah. Yeah." The sunlight showed the spill of silver at his temples now. She made a sound and touched them. He cocked his head.

"What?"

"Your hair is…"

"Ah. I thought it might." He rose, helping her up. "It's the wolf, Jill. Ignore it."

"You're alright?"

"I'm fine."

Mira moved through the door into the church corridor. The alter at the center was beautiful, jeweled and covered in red and more red taffeta and silk. There was a stained glass image of a wolf and the moon and the spill of blood behind it. The wide open area was lined on either side by pews and sarcophagi. The coffins were stone and covered in images of death. Beheading, drawn and quartered, burnt alive, plague and famine. It was atop the ten coffins lining the church.

Leon moved toward the alter and there was the hum in his blood again. It was what? He touched the book on the alter and something shifted. Ah. It was the calling. Something was calling him. He laid his palm on the book. The alter shivered and clicked, opening.

From the walkway above the church floor, a voice stopped them from moving down the jeweled staircase that was exposed.

"You do not belong here."

Three guns snapped to the face there. Leon's didn't. He remained, still and watching.

The woman was in white. She wore a dress that swept the floor as she moved. Her hair was steel gray and silver. It flowed down her back as she moved. Her eyes were the color of good red blood. She tilted it now, mimicking what Jill had seen so often on Leon. She studied them.

"You come to my sanctum. You bring weapons. No."

She waved her hand and their weapons were torn free of their hands. They spun away and stuck to the walls, like magnets had pulled them clear. The katana on his back stayed, humming like a song. The Sumbitch stayed in his holster. Curious.

"You will not threaten us. Not here. We are not for you to threaten. You are not worthy."

She rolled her fist inward and Mira, Carlos, and Jill went their knees, covering their ears. The piercing scream was loud, warbling. It echoed off the walls, shaking the roof. Snow shivered down the stain glass windows, showing the sunlight just beyond.

Leon stayed standing.

The woman paused, studying him. "You have my blood."

"Seems that way."

"Who are you?"

"I'd ask you the same."

"I am Lillith. I am the Alpha."

"Lillith, I'm Leon Kennedy. And I didn't come here to join your party, wreck it, or break it up. I'm here for one man. I need to know if you have him."

"Interesting. You are pack, Leon Kennedy. You cannot exist without the pack. You must remain. I will make you welcome…your humans will pay your passage to safety."

"You won't touch them."

"You will not resist. I am Alpha, Leon. I will have what's yours and you will be grateful."

Leon chuckled a little. "You don't know me, Lillith. So I'm going to offer you a word of advice before we get going here: don't threaten what's mine. I don't do well with it."

Lillith laughed, delighted with him. And she leapt. Although that was the wrong word too. She sprang and bounced off the wall, hit the far one behind him and landed, sliding along the floor on all fours like…well…like a wolf. She rose, studying him. Jill, Carlos, and Mira were getting to their feet now.

Lillith moved toward him and he waited, watching her.

"You are strong. You are…" She sniffed him, "Still human. And yet not. You fascinate me."

She moved. He moved. She grabbed at him and he rolled back, missing her hand by an inch. He spun low and took her legs from her. She went down on her back. And he straddled her with the katana against her throat.

Her eyes flared and watched it. He smelled it. He saw it. She wanted him to finish and spill her blood and mate with her while she pumped hot, sticky, life around them.

Animal, his mind said, and his body responded.

Lillith was thrilled. "Yes. Human…but not for long. You can't kill the alpha, Leon Kennedy. But perhaps you are alpha?"

She put her hand against his blade and pushed. It bled her, brought her breath in an excited gasp, she pushed until it was away from her throat. And then she lifted her leg and kicked him, straight up, in the back of the head.

He went down against her and she grabbed his face with her good hand and pushed his own blade against him. "Alpha." She murmured. "Tell them no. They rush us now. Tell them no or I will you kill."

Jill had already stopped. Carlos and Mira followed.

"Whom do you seek, Leon Kennedy?"

"Chris Redfield."

And he watched her eyes. She looked delighted. "I have him. I have them both. They came here looking for answers. They were not pack. They are now mine. He is to be a favorite for my females. He is handsome no? The woman? She is a fighter. I will turn her and make her my Beta."

"The woman?"

"Yes. She is in red. RED is the color of pack." Lillith put her fingers on his shirt and rubbed. "You know this…clearly."

"Give them back. We'll leave you in peace."

"You won't survive outside of this place, Leon Kennedy. You are PACK. Listen to the word. Understand it. You will turn and you will kill these humans. You will turn them. And they will become as you are. I will let you try for them. Inside this place there is no escape. You will come for them. I will watch you fail and I will have you."

She licked his cheek and let the blade nick is chin. She licked the blood. "I will enjoy watching you become."

"I don't die that easily."

"Not die, Leon Kennedy. BECOME." She clenched her hand in a fist and the other three went to their knees again. And she shoved the blade into him.

She was just that much stronger. She humped her body and threw him off her. The blade was lodged against his vest, stuck on the fabric. She lifted her brows. "Come see what awaits you. I should like to watch you fight for dominance."

Lillith walked toward the stairs. "Beware what waits inside a wolf's den, Leon Kennedy. You have not seen devotion like that within the pack. They will kill you and couple with you as you die. Blood is the root of all things. We need it to mate as to massacre. Find me within the den. I will make you mine."

He rushed at her and she turned, spun in a circle like a white wind, and kicked him three times in the chest. She grabbed his arm, rotated, drove a knee into his stomach and threw him away. He swung the sword as he went, missing her by inches. It took a chunk of her hair and she gasped. She caught his wrists and jerked him forward. She was so short. Barely five feet. She looked at him, grinning.

"Your bravery is foolish but respectable." She kissed his mouth and he rotated, brought his elbow down to break her hold. She let him, ankle swept him simultaneously, and put him on his knees, facing away from her.

She licked the back of his neck. He threw an elbow back at her face and rolled, spinning out of it and into a back flip. She watched him, eyes flared. "Beautiful. You move like music. I see why he chose you."

"Who?"

"Fenrir. He chose you. He said to make you pack. You tried to kill him of course but he wanted you. He said you fought like nothing he'd ever seen. You almost killed him. If you'd been a little faster. He said not to kill you but to turn you. He was right."

"I'm going to finish the job, I promise you."

"Perhaps. I will enjoy watching you try."

She scented the air and turned her head. Her eyes fell on Jill. She tilted her head and tilted it again. Leon moved and she flicked that thoughtless power at him. It him like a windy slap, spilling him backward. He hit one of the coffins and was stuck there, frozen.

Lillith grabbed Jill's hair and pulled her face up. "This is your bitch."

Jill made a sound as the woman scented her, sniffing along her mouth and ears. She sniffed her breasts and lower. Jill tried to move and was trapped while the woman sniffed her crotch.

"Yes. Your bitch. You are all over her. Is she your mate?"

Lillith studied Jill. Jill gave her bored and blank eyes. "Strong. Good. You should only mate with the strong. He will fill your belly with pups, bitch. And they will all be mine." She scented the air again, "Ah. You are unable to breed. A shame. You will not do for a mate if you cannot breed."

Lillith grabbed her throat as if to rip it out. Leon made some sound of denial. Mira, on her face on the floor, grunted. Lillith felt along her throat and leaned down to lick her mouth. Jill couldn't stop her, couldn't do anything but stare as she licked inside of her mouth like an animal.

"No…not unable. Protected. You are protected from breeding." She leaned back and caught her eyes. The world was quiet now, peaceful. Jill stared down into those red eyes and felt empty. And the emptiness was perfect. "Remove it. Join the pack."

Jill shivered and her mouth opened, she said, "Blow me….bitch."

And she head butted her.

It was the moment Leon realized she had partial immunity to whatever was inside the virus. Why? T? She'd had immunity once to T because of her exposure. He'd heard that was burnt out of her during her cryostasis. Perhaps not. Maybe she was still immune.

Blood burst from that small, delicate, beautiful face. And Lillith back handed her. Jill was thrown to the side and slid along the floor. The pain broke her concentration and Leon pushed off the coffin. But Lillith did stay. She fled toward the stairs.

And she yelled, "You choose not to follow!? Than DIE SCREAMING."

All ten lids on the coffins shivered, shooting dust and rumbling. Lillith was gone and the room was shivering and shaking around them. Mira and Carlos were getting to their feet.

Leon grabbed Jill and spun her over in his arms.

She was awake, watching him.

"I will NEVER let you become like that." She grabbed his face.

"That makes two of us."

And the coffin beside them dropped the heavy stone lid to the floor with a loud and ominous boom. He jerked her to her feet and threw her behind him. She went, stumbling. She swung the machine gun.

And the world was suddenly filled with the howling and screaming of death.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN: Lycanthropy and Lies that Lead the Way

Antarctica: The Den of the Wolf

What came out of the sarcophagi had started life mortal. It had started life a man and woman. It had been someone's wife and someone's mother and someone's love. It was nothing human any more.

Ten of them, bursting and screaming and taking flight. They were running for weapons and fighting for their lives. Carlos rolled, nearly lost his head. He fired his shotgun into the face of the elongated monster that went for his throat.

Mira was knocked backward, flying. She hit the wall and slid to the floor. She was firing from her knees as a wolf the size of a pony leapt at her.

Leon dropped the sword into his hand and twisted the handle. It opened, beautifully. And the thing rushing him paused.

It scented and it reversed, rushing toward the others.

Interesting.

Leon rushed it, fast and deadly. He leapt, spun out, and landed, blocking the way. It paused again, sniffing at him.

"I'm not your pack. I'm not your friend. And I usually don't like being ignored." He spun, full circle, and the blade took its screaming head. One of the wolves leapt on his back and he let it take him to the floor and skid through the blood of the dead.

He drove the sword into its chest, roaring, as he rolled. His feet went into its soft belly and he kept on rolling, throwing it up and out. It was airborne and Jill peppered it with the machine gun. It landed, bleeding and dead, as it slid along the floor.

Mira was down and screaming.

He rolled left, sprang up and grabbed the balcony above them. He used it to propel him downward. The sword drove into the spine of the thing atop her, trying to eat her face. He pinned it into the cold stone floor an inch from her face. It twitched, gushing blood on her chest and belly.

"Don't get ANY in your mouth! None in your membranes! MOVE!"

She shut her mouth and rolled out from under it.

Carlos blasted another flying one in the face. It screeched, smashed into the wall, and Jill joined the fray with the machine gun.

Leon twirled the sword and two wolves paced him now. They were wolves, yes, but they were monsters. They had elongated wrists and elbows with hooked claws and faces that opened around mouths filled teeth. The eyes, red and wicked, were filled with the souls still of men who were trapped inside. They didn't attack. They paced him. He palmed the sword in one hand and put his hand out. The biggest one, the white one, tilted its head. The gray one attacked him.

He ducked back and the wolf swiped where he'd been. He took its paw for the effort. It howled and Leon threw a roundhouse at it, watching it thrown to the side. He took the sword made staff in his hands and drove it like a spear into that howling mouth. Blood sprayed, gushing and bursting in a red burst.

The white wolf continued to watch him.

Leon said, softly, "Stay."

And it sat, on its haunches.

Jill was watching him, amazed.

He saw the moment that she'd die. It was outlaid over her like a fine film. He sprang off the ground and raced. The thing above her grabbed her hair and lifted her up, airborne and screaming. It threw her like she was nothing.

Leon hit it in mid air and they went down, smashing into the floor and bursting through a row pews in a smash and crash of wood and destruction. He rose, shouting, and drove the sword into its heart. It reared, screeching, and spitting and bleeding. He ripped the blade clean and shoved it in again. The chest burst open with a meaty pop and crunch of broken bone.

He rose, baptized in blood, and scanned the area for Jill. She was safe.

She was dangling from the ceiling on the grapple gun.

He laughed, loving her.

He spun back and Carlos was down and buried under two wolves. He heard the rip of fabric and Carlos shouting. Mira was there, leaping. She came down on the back of one of the wolves like a Valkyrie. It reared and she slit its throat with the steel knife in her hand.

Jill ran from the church and into the room they'd left behind.

She was back and running, running. She tossed the candle stick like a baton in a relay race.

He caught it, felt the burn beneath the glove, and threw it, "MIRA!"

Mira lifted her hand, caught the stick, and shoved it against the exposed and bloody throat.

The wolf roared, howling, howling and smoking. It caught fire in that open throat and she leapt clear, rolling away. It stank, like hair and burning flesh. And Carlos blasted the one on top of him with the shotgun.

It backed off, howling.

Leon turned to the white wolf. She was patiently watching him.

Jill unloaded her machine gun into the last wolf atop Carlos. It went down, heaving, and was still. The last of the vampire men was dangling on the ceiling, watching them.

It dropped to the floor and looked at them.

Leon rolled the sword in his hands. The vampire thing studied him. It shrieked, screaming high and loud and awful. Mira grabbed her ears. Carlos fired on it and the shot was lost as it leapt clean and the heavy round tore up the wall behind it.

It backhanded him, insanely fast. He was throw out and came down beside one of the coffins. Mira rushed it and it swept her feet out from under her and grabbed her throat. It shook her, shrieking, and she smashed the candlestick into its face.

Reeling, roaring, it threw her out and away. Jill fired on it with the machine gun and it ducked, rolled, leapt and came at her.

"No." Leon met it in mid rush. He kicked it back, watched it roll. It lifted, eyeing him.

"Yeah. You're the second idiot to over look me. Not her, you ugly sack of shit. ME."

It raced for him and he flourished the sword, smooth and deadly. He took it in the shoulder, spun back, throwing blood. It reeled and he hooked an ankle around its back and threw it to the floor. He put the sword to its chest.

"Stay down. And start talking or I'll end you. Where are they?"

It hissed at him.

He slapped it. The feel of that violence echoed in his blood. The elongated face roared with all those teeth. Leon punched it in the face.

The crack of bone was loud in the room. It flopped, angry and stifled.

"TALK! I know you can! WHERE ARE THEY!?"

And now it hissed, low and awful, "You will not find them. They are protected. You are strong but stupid. You will die!"

"Yeah? Seems the reverse here, asswipe. I'm looking down at you and your kindred here and I'm thinking you're done. Last time: Where are they?"

"They are in the inner sanctum. But you will never reach them."

"I guess we'll find out."

"I was going to kill your woman. I was going to bathe in her blood."

"Yeah? Why don't I bathe in yours?" He flipped the sword in his hands and split him open from groin to sternum. The stench of blood and death was horrid. It ripped and raped the senses and left the room filled with a noxious odor that was cloying. Leon drove the sword into its heart, panting. Mad. Mad for it.

Jill grabbed his arm and shoved the needle into his neck. He jerked, grabbed her arm, and breathed. She grabbed his face, holding on.

"Shhh. It's ok. Hold on."

A long moment passed. He nodded, nodded again. "I'm ok."

"Good."

"Guys?"

They turned and there was Mira and Carlos. They were looking at the white wolf. Sitting she was shoulder height. She was wearing a little gold collar.

He moved toward her. She tilted her head at him. He lifted a glove hand and touched her face. She nuzzled his palm.

Alpha, the woman had said, and it would seem he was. He cupped the name tag on the collar. GRACE.

"Grace, I'm Leon. I'm going to need your help. Help me, and I will release you from what you've become. I swear to god."

The wolf watched him with human intelligence. It seemed to agree. He rubbed her fur.

Carlos said, "We're trusting an enormous wolf?"

Mira answered, "You got a better idea?"

Leon turned, covered in blood. He was something to see. He moved and the wolf moved beside him. Jill was by the stairs, looking down.

"Honesty now. Can we do this?"

Leon turned his head, studying her. He said, "I should infect you."

Carlos put the gun on him, just like that.

Mira glanced over, "WHOA. What the fuck."

"You won't be infecting anybody here, amigo. Sorry. But no."

Jill held his eyes. "Why?"

"You can't fight her. Any of them without their speed and strength. More then a few of them? I don't know if we can take them."

Jill studied his face for a long moment. "Can you infect me?"

"Jill!"

Carlos was ignored.

"I don't know, honestly. You seem to have partial immunity. Why?"

"Wesker shot me full of that shit once upon a time. Maybe he was already onto whatever this was. Maybe it's his baby in a way. You could never tell with him."

"Possible. We need to know the answer," He studied her. "Would you let me infect you?"

She stared at him. He stared back. She slid the glasses down his nose. The eyes were a little more red. "Maybe. I can't stand the idea of you turning into that thing. If you turn me, will I be able to help you? I'd like to say yes…but what if we can't get a vaccine for it? We'll be trapped…that way."

"Yeah." He lifted his mouth in a little smile, "Monsters. Shall we?"

"Hold. I need to do this first." She hit the button on her communicator, "HQ this is Vermillion."

"Vermillion? We gotcha, come back, over."

"The situation here is volatile. The enemy is worse than we thought. I need you guys to analyze my blood, compare it to Chris' blood and the samples we have of the virus. I need to know what my immunity is. The alpha here? She keeps referencing me as unable to conceive. Apparently, there's a reason for that. It could be the IUD I have or it could be the fact that when she started flinging power at us? I could resist…sorta."

"Whoa," Quint answered, impressed, "Explain "power" to me? Rebecca is with me now too. So be specific."

Leon answered, quietly, "The power she wields seems to work on a molecular level. She controls something in the blood. She can manipulate matter. Is it Veronica?"

Rebecca's voice came back, "First guess is yes. Veronica came, remember, from the premise of the Queen Ant that Ashford was fascinated with. In this case? Sounds like the alpha is the queen. She spliced Veronica with T and Progenitor. She was trying to make the perfect soldier. Are you telling me this alpha can control you?"

"To a degree. But I can resist, as well, to a degree. Jill? She seems to be able to actually SPEAK during the moments when she uses that power on us."

"Right out of the gate, I'm going to speculate that her immunity to the T-Virus that occurred when she was infected remains in her DNA structure. During Cryo, it should be eradicated in her blood. But since we know Wesker was using the compound on her to elicit complete control while he studied her antibodies, there's a good chance she's still holding on to that immunity."

Leon considered his next question, carefully, "Could she be infected? With what I've been infected with?"

"That's a hard question. Let me run a simulation on that and get you an answer. Why?"

"We're out numbered here. This place operates as a pack, a den, if we go down these steps, I don't think I'm enough to make sure they come back up."

"You want back up?"

"That's dangerous. Yes is the answer I want to give you. But she claims they have Chris. IF they have Chris, they'll kill him if I take more men down there."

Rebecca was quiet for a long, long moment. "You want to know if you can infect Jill and have her fight with you."

He was looking at Jill, holding her eyes. She was watching him, so very calmly. And finally? She grabbed his hand, flipped her palm, and linked their fingers. He squeezed it, holding on.

"Yeah. I want to know if I can turn her and have her help."

Quint breathed, "That's insane."

And Rebecca said, "It's not insane. It's smart. And I can't give you an answer on it. Not yet. Give me a little time to see. But you're playing with fire here, Agent Kennedy. I don't even know if I can fix you. You want to risk Jill that way?"

"…no. Never. But I don't think I can do this alone."

Mira said, softly, "Turn me too."

He glanced at her, surprised.

Rebecca, on the communicator, said, "Wait wait wait. Before everyone gets stupid and noble. Just wait. Let me dig here on my end, let me look. I'm having Quint dig into the lore and the connection with wolves and the vampire stuff. They called Ashford Nosferatu. There's a reason for that. Let's see what I can find before you go sacrificing yourself on the alter of power. REMEMBER: With absolute power comes absolute responsibility."

And Quint's voice came back to them, "I love a girl who quotes Spiderman to me."

"What we know so far about the unknown variant?"

"More now than ten minutes ago. Let me set up my parameters to look for wolf and bat and a few other things. Are you safe?"

"We seem to be, at the moment."

"How's the suppression shots working?"

"They work. The more I fight, the faster it wears off."

"Yeah, the adrenaline."

"Seems that way."

Rebecca was quiet for a long moment. "Agent Kennedy…"

"LEON."

"Yeah. Leon. You're a smart guy. What do you see? What's your feeling here?"

"Honestly? This shit is bad news. This woman, Lillith, she's got the answers. I may need to play into her hands a little here to get them. I think we NEED her. I need Joel to dig through all Chris' missions. ALL of them. I need to know what else he's been exposed to. And I need you to run samples against every virus you've got on file."

"That could take forever."

"I know that."

"I'm not sure how much time you have. How's the progression?"

He turned a little and Jill saw the streak at his left temple had gone silver from root to tips. She kept on holding those eyes. "He doesn't have long."

"There is the chance, depending on what we're working with…that he will change but remain in complete control of his body."

Jill blinked and blinked again, "What?"

"Back channels keep telling me that somebody was already messing with something similar here. They were trying to mix it with enough to remain human…with extras."

Leon blinked, "You're talking about Manuela. And the V complex used there."

"Yes. And how it was working in conjunction with variant temperatures. Remember what Quint said about bacteria? Apply that to this virus. It's controlled there, in the cold. It's wolves but HUMAN wolves and vampire types. In the Mylan where the ambient temperature was humid? It was lions and wolfmen. WOLFMEN. Do you see? The virus is animal, Leon. Why? I need that answer to help you fight it."

Leon considered, pacing a little. "Manuela had some control on it, Rebecca. She was able to stop the mutation through self control. You're saying that the den that exists here exist because the virus is limited by the cold?"

"Yes."

"If you were to cryogenically freeze me, would that stop the progression?"

"Theoretically, yes."

"Good to know. Here's what I can do. I'm going to go down these stairs. I should do it alone. I should do it now. I think they only want me. I can trade myself for Chris."

Jill shouted it now, "How does that help anyone!?"

Leon met her eyes and spoke again, calmly, "The cold here will limit how fast I change. I could have longer. And you'll have Chris. Get him out. Get him to safety. And find the answer."

There was silence all around them. "It's not a bad plan." Carlos was the first to speak.

Jill gave him a dirty look.

"Look, I'm not about giving them what they want. Kennedy in their hands? That's fucking nuts. But you said it yourself, he's still Leon Kennedy. He won't do anything stupid. And we NEED Chris."

Jill shook her head, "No. He's not going do there alone. No."

Mira was very quiet, watching everything. The consideration on her face was very unlike her. She was, probably, the most point and shoot type girl out there. Grace was sitting, quiet and thoughtful, next to Leon.

And Jill didn't miss the petting. He kept stroking the wolf. Like it or not, he was bound to something here with these….freaks. And she was scared to death by it.

Finally, Rebecca came back to them over the headset, "I have Jill's blood sample print out here. She's immune to the T-Virus strain. However? The unknown variant is a mystery. It keeps flashing an error at me. Without knowing what data to input, the program can only work with what we've got. It might work to turn her, it might kill her."

"Why would she be a mystery?"

"My guess? Wesker."

"You think he was shooting her full of Veronica?"

Quint answered them now, "I think it's impossible to know what he was doing with her. He created the P30 to control her. Why? He had creations. Why did he need Jill? The antibodies, yes, but why keep her? Was it another shot at Chris? How will we ever really know?"

Leon held her eyes while they talked. Jill was shaking her head. They hadn't dropped hands though, not once.

"So changing her might destroy her?"

"Potentially. Or it might make her alpha like you said. Or it might kill her instantly. It's a virus, Leon, it's somewhat predictable but isn't. This one? I only know half of the compound. So I can only go so far with the scenarios."

"Will taking her blood help us find the cure?"

Oh. Jill lifted her brows.

"No. She's not immune like Chris. She's the opposite. He likely developed a slow immunity from the exposure. He was patched up but the subtlety of the infection in him was minor. His natural resistance built up over time. Like he'd been shot with a booster of Veronica. Jill was immune to T in a similar fashion. The unknown? It shows Chris as immune but not Jill."

Jill shifted and she moved, just a little closer to Leon. His hand slid over her forearm, hers settled on his hip. A casual gesture. A lover's gesture. Mira studied them, silently.

"She referred to me as protected from pregnancy. Did she mean my IUD?"

"Possibly. Wolves don't use contraceptives, clearly. She wants you to breed. Why?"

Jill hesitated and answered, "She thinks I'm his mate."

"You are, according to wolf culture. Most likely. Again, I'm going to ask you a question that is personal and I'm sorry for it but it may help us here."

"I understand."

"Do you allow him to dominate you?"

Well, this was officially the most embarrassing conversation she'd ever had. She could feel Carlos watching her with interest. She could feel Mira silently watching her. She felt Leon's eyes on her face and stared at the floor instead.

"….in what way?"

"The pack will be talking about allowing him to control you through sex. Sorry. But they will."

"It's ok. Yes. We're...it's good. It's good there." She whispered it, softly. And Leon's hand slid down her forearm, linked with hers and he turned her. He simply turned her into his body. His vest was soft on her face as she put her cheek on it.

"Good."

And now Jill blinked, "What?"

"GOOD. You submitted to him. By wolf culture, the female alpha can't kill you. Not out right. You protected yourself without even knowing. She can torture the shit out of you, but she won't kill you. He chose you as his mate. She needs you to challenge her, lose, so she can claim him. That's how the pack works."

He put his hand on her face and turned it up to him. He shook his head, silently telling her how he felt about her challenging Lillith. Well he wasn't her boss. She'd do what she wanted. Submissive to him or not. It annoyed her. It rankled. She wasn't submissive to him. Sexually, yes, but even that was hit or miss.

"…I got into the habit of submitting to Wesker. It wasn't sexual. But it was similar to wolves in that he wanted me to submit to his will. I did it. Whatever he used? That shit? It was bad news. This stuff is similar. That woman, Lillith, she wasnts control like that."

There. It was out there. It was just…out there. And it was time to admit it.

"The shit he pumped me full of controlled me. But he made me learn to love following him. He made me confused at first and finally, when he couldn't really break me, he molded me into his creation. I was his puppet, in all things. If that is happening here? These people are in real trouble."

There was silence on all fronts now. Jill tried to see the judgement in those eyes of his that she loved. And there was none. There was a finite rage that burned there on her behalf. But no pity. And no judgement. She wrapped her arms around his waist and put her cheek to his.

The touching, she realized, that was wolf as well. Wolves touched for comfort or to show respect. They touched for a variety of reasons. He was always touching her. Maybe he'd always been the wolf after all.

Rebecca finally came back to her, just her. She felt the individual transmission and appreciated it, "Were you sexually abused by Wesker himself? I'm sorry to ask, I am. But if he ejaculated in you, it may explain the unable to conceive part you were talking about. Wesker, if he was even capable of ejaculation, would have had altered semen. Possibly frighteningly. And children he conceived would have had to happen when he was human. At least physically. His ejaculate may explain the variations in your blood work. Without having him here, I can't ask him what he was full of and there were limited samples of his blood."

GOOD GOD. That was disgusting and horrible to imagine. Jill shivered and Leon held her tighter.

"No. He wasn't about that. He wasn't about touching me like that. He…was dominate to me. He had me submit to him. But he never fucked me. Never touched me like that."

"I see. You were his Frankenstein's monster in a sense."

"…yes."

"Ok. Again. GOOD. If you were infertile, the pack would kill you. And you would be removed as his mate. She said you were protected right? Let's assume she means the IUD and the partial immunity for now. For now, play the mate of Leon and I think you'll be ok."

Jill figured this is what happens when you fuck a coworker. Of course. Here it was, their private life on full display.

Mira said, quietly, "Jill Valentine, you slut. I love it."

Carlos was looking at Jill with different eyes too now. She didn't like it. It was dirty. Leon made some sound and Carlos lifted his hands, showing himself unarmed.

"You are showing yourself as his mate. You are allowing him to breed on you. Without trying, you've set yourself up in a good place here, Jill."

AND this was officially the strangest conversation she'd ever had. Officially. And that included a three hour discussion with Chris once on what life in the old west would have been like with zombies. "What?"

"You've set yourself in a traditional roll as his alpha female. It's a good place to be. The pack will start hounding you, hehe, about having children."

"….no. Hence the reason it's in place. So that DOESN'T happen."

"Are you ovulating?"

Mira was laughing now. Carlos looked interested. Leon was actually smirking.

"Are you asking me to let Leon Kennedy impregnate me?" And now Jill laughed too.

"No. Not exactly. But she'll smell it, Jill. She'll know. And she may use it against you. If you're fertile, she'll mate you to another male. And then you won't be Leon's anymore."

Quint came back to them now, "Ok. I have an evacuation team in place. You've got eight hours to find Chris, get him out, and make your moves there. That's it. Otherwise the cavalry is riding to the rescue."

Leon nodded, "Good. What do we have on wolves?"

"I'm sending all the data I have to your phone."

"Thanks."

"Maybe Mira can be my mate?"

Mira answered, "I wouldn't let you even touch my belly, Jackass. Let alone stuff it full of your demon spawn."

Rebecca said, "Be careful, all of you. If you lose the ability to send transmissions, remember that Gertie is still there. She is supposed to check in hourly with you. If she doesn't get you, she'll get word to us."

"Roger."

"Consider what I said, Jill. Play the mate. It' s a hard place to be, clearly, but it may save your life."

"I'll play nice."

"Good. Sorry for the weird sex talk. And be careful."

The silence around them was loud now. He glanced at their faces, "Priority one is Chris. We need him. You find him? You get him out. Forget about me. Get him out. We get separated? The plane is the rendezvous point. Remember what Rebecca was telling us about wolves. They are PACK. You won't be facing just one. But you might be able to make a deal. Be careful, they don't think entirely like humans."

He turned his eyes to Jill now. She pressed a kiss to his mouth. "Don't be stupid, Jill. I mean it. She wants you dead. Don't make it easy for her."

"You want me to what? Let you poke a baby in my belly to stop her?"

Oh. OH. His face. His face said yes. He liked that idea. He wanted to put a baby in her belly. He touched her belly now and she stepped back, shaking her head. "Stop it. This isn't you, it's the infection. You don't want to knock me up."

He licked his teeth and shook his head a little, "Of course not."

He went down the jewel encrusted staircase. She watched him move. Mira moved up beside her.

"Scary."

"He's still him. This battle proved that."

Mira added, softly, "It's you."

"What?"

"You're the only thing binding him here. Be careful. You could be what pushes him off the edge of it too."

"How so?"

"Mate, Jill. She called you his mate. In wolves, that's a different thing. He will throw down, go down, and die to defend you."

"He's Leon Kennedy. That's just who he is. He'd do that for you as well."

"No. And yes. But if he thinks you might turn on him? Wolves will kill their mate before they let another have it too. Remember that."

Jill watched him move. He put his hand out and touched the wolf. She moved closer to him. Was he still Leon Kennedy? He seemed to be. He was still snarky and still mouthy and still funny. And he was still something else.

They followed him down the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, there were four people waiting for them.

The woman Lillith and three companions. She studied him.

"You defeated my sentinels."

"I told you not to fuck with what's mine. I meant it. Give me what I came for or you'll join them."

The huge man beside her stepped up. He was six four and easily three hundred pounds of muscle. He was enormous and had a wide flat face and wide set blue eyes. They were pale and riddled with red at the same time. He licked his mouth. "Do you see, Lillith? Do you see?"

"I do. You said he was here. Perhaps you were right."

Jill, Mira, and Carlos moved up behind him.

Lillith turned her head. "Grace. You betrayed me."

The white wolf sat gingerly on the ground, watching her.

"I won't punish you. I will let you help him. He is alpha. How could you deny? Leon Kennedy, you are dealing with things you cannot begin to understand. I will offer you the chance to educate yourself. And then? If you can defeat Fenrir in combat, I will let you have Chris Redfield."

Fenrir, the big one, glanced at her in surprise.

"He is alpha. He will never be able to fight the pack. He cannot."

"I just smacked the shit out of plenty of your pack up there. So keep saying that." Leon crossed his arms over his chest, studying her.

Lillith paced closer to him. He could feel her vibrating with the need to touch him. She trailed her fingers now, over his vest and shivered. "We are Nebuchadnezzar. The originals. You will find reference to it in the book of god that you humans follow. He was the first of the wolves. I worked here. I was happy here. I was very smart and very good. Alexia's father was my mentor. And when he was gone? Alexia herself. She was very wise and very powerful. She was alpha. If I'd have known how to save her, how to create her as pack and preserve her, she would be here now with me. I played around. I searched. I sent out scouts to bring me back what I needed. I injected myself with it. I went down in the cafeteria here. I awoke..pack. I turned Fenrir. He has brought the rest to us. He was my only child. I told him the alpha would come. It seems I was right."

Leon watched her and didn't move as she touched his chin and played her finger over the suggestion of the cleft there. He answered, quietly, "You went down infected with a fucking virus. A VIRUS. It's not a right of passage and you aren't a wolf. You're a mistake. A fluke. Something created by a MAN. Lay down, give up, and we can cure you."

Lillith flared her eyes, scenting him. She put her face to his cheek and rolled her nose over the pulse at the base of his jaw. She licked him and he caught her arms, pushing her back.

"Enough."

"Will you forsake your mate for your pack? You are wolf. You are just fighting it. Why? It will make you free."

"I don't submit, Lillith. Ever. You don't know me, not really, so I'm going to give you a piece of advice and I hope you listen this time. You won't get me with threats. You won't get me with any of that. I don't just give up."

"Would you? For the safety of others? Would you trade yourself for Chris Redfield perhaps?"

They studied each other.

"Ah. Yes. You will. You are noble. But it is not my way to submit either. You will fight for him. That is how it is done here."

He watched her and the man farthest from her moved. He raced forward. Leon clotheslined him, kicked him in the back of the knee, caught his face and broke his neck. It was three seconds and done.

Fenrir laughed, thrilled. "You see!? He is what we needed."

"Yes. He was a fighter before. He is a warrior now."

Lillith watched him, "Submit. And I will let them go."

Jill laughed, "Shut up, bitch. And get on with it."

Lillith flung her power out. It threw them all about like tossed toys. They hit the walls and were trapped there.

Rebecca, had she been there, would have told them that her "power" was the ability to control them on a molecular level. The virus in her body, amplified by the strain of the yet unknown component, gave her the ability to sense and shift both air and space. But to the people in the room? It was just magic. And it was terrifying.

She held Leon still against the wall with just her ability to control him. That was blood and amplification of the virus within her own body. It was similar to plagas but not quite. She was Saddler but stronger. She was…what had she said?...ALPHA.

Lillith caught his face and looked at him. "You have a few days, perhaps less. And you will turn and you will come to me. I can wait."

He watched, frozen, as Jill rushed her.

His brain said, no. NO.

And it was too late for that.

Jill flipped, spun low, and took out the third guard. She kicked him twice in the face, rolled as he dove for her, and brought up her knife. She gutted him in a single flurried move. It spilled his intestines like an ugly piñata all over the ground. Carlos shot the big guy in the chest, twice. Mira leapt on Lillith.

No.

He tried to move and Lillith threw Mira off her. She turned and Jill threw a flip kick at her, kicking out and over into a cartwheel. It struck, clean in the face. Leon glanced at Grace, who was lying flat on the floor, frozen like him.

Lillith and Jill circled each other now.

"You are his mate. Do not lose your right to be so. I will kill you for it."

"Bitch, please. No more talk." Jill rushed her. Mira picked up his sword from the ground. And Carlos blasted the shotgun.

Lillith avoided the shot and it smashed into the ceiling. She spun clean, kicked Carlos in the face and sent him rolling, and threw her power at Mira. It tossed her halfway up the stairs with the sword raised above her head in midstrike. She grabbed Jill's arm as she threw down, bringing her knife an inch from her face.

"Close…but not enough."

Lillith caught her throat and lifted her, dangling her feet.

Fenrir was on his feet now and took the shotgun from the floor. He jacked a round into it and kept Mira and Carlos at bay. The room breathed around them.

"Defending your mate is admirable. But do not forget who rules here." Lillith turned to him, "I will do you a favor and take your mate. Fenrir, Cassius take the others as well. Put them all in cells. Leon Kennedy, you are trying my patience. And I find I do not like it."

She slapped Jill so hard that he watched blood fly from her mouth. She dangled now, unconscious. He tried to move, infuriated. And then she leaned in and scented her. She sniffed her and licked her face.

Leon made some sound in his throat that drew her eye.

"Yes. She is yours. It's all over her. I will make her the perfect mate for you. I will strip away her humanity and leave her wolf for you. You will mate with her and breed from her and then I will have her challenge me. I will destroy her and you will be mine. It is the way of things. It is nature."

Lillith tossed her to Fenrir. He put her over his shoulder, easily. Mira and Carlos moved forward, walking. They were divested of their weapons and shoved into a cell with Grace.

Lillith threw Leon into his own with just that awful power. He hit the wall, hard enough to jar his bones, and slid to the floor. He sat there, frozen, panting.

"I will take your mate and…teach her humility. I will return her to you in one hour. I expect you to be ready to fight. Remember, fight and escape. Capitulate and I will release your humans. Resist? I will kill them one at a time while you watch. Starting with Chris Redfield."

She slammed the steel door of his cell and locked it tight. "One hour. Think of what your life means to you. I could keep you here until you turn and have you kill them all. Remember that."

As she left, her power went with her. He collapsed to the floor, panting.

The rage was a fine and trembling thing. He ran at the door and struck it, shouting. He glanced around the cell and found it empty save for the dirty mattress on the floor. They were trapped here and they were fucked.

Unless he fought for them all. He'd do it. He'd known he'd do it the moment she'd taken Jill. He'd fight anyone for that.

What other choice was there?"

….

In her chamber, Lillith was sipping a glass of wine. She watched the girl at the table in front of her. Such an angry female, so very feisty and tough.

She was made to be pack. She just needed to submit or perish. There was no in between.

"What are you seeking here?"

"We told you. Chris. Give him back and we'll all go home."

"No. Will you fight for him?"

Jill studied her, curious.

"In a pack, dominance struggles perpetuate the line. Will you fight for him? If you defeat one of the pack, I will let him go."

"The same deal you offered Leon?"

"No. I mean to keep Leon Kennedy. He is alpha. I will have him. I need you gone for that. You are his mate. I would see you die in combat."

"Ah. So the plot thickens. You expect him to what? Choose to capitulate?"

"Yes. He is still human. Humans have feelings about such things. You are his mate. He will give up."

Jill laughed, amused. She leaned back on the table, kicking up her boots. "You've met him. Do you really believe that? He'll choose to fight, you stupid cow. And he'll WIN."

"I suspect that may be true actually."

"You won't have him. Kill me all you want. He won't go to you. He loves me, you fool. That's still nature. HUMAN nature. You can't kill me and take my place."

Jill studied her as she sat there, contemplating. She was beautiful. She was ethereal with a delicate bone structure and yards of silver hair. She was impossible to peg, in terms of age. She seemed young but the silver hair was a mystery. Of course, Leon was turning silver too. It was the wolf thing, clearly. Would he go entirely white before it was done?

"Why are you here, Lillith? And for what purpose?"

"Shall I reveal the dastardly nature of my evil plan? There is no EVIL with wolves, Jill Valentine. There is just survival and perpetuation of the pack. I have no intent to harm any beyond these walls."

"What about the highschool? The infection there?"

"Ah. Fenrir. He is a naughty boy. He was such a naughty boy when he was human. He likes to bring the masses to us. He released the airborne strain. He wanted some young wolves and hybrids. They died or they turned. It was species propagation. That was all."

"You killed all those people. All of them. You killed friends of mine and children."

"It is nature. Nature is cruel. It kills broadly and without feeling. It doesn't discern between young and old and ready."

"That's science, you heartless bitch. Science killed those people. Nature is a tornado. It's not an infection created in a lab."

"It is both. As nature is both. Nature is the love you speak of with Leon Kennedy. Do you love him? As he loves you?"

Jill watched her face. She picked her teeth with the little eating knife on the table. "He's mine. That's all you need to know about that."

"Will you fight me for him?"

"No need. He's MINE. It's not animal. He's mine. He belongs to me. I won't let you have him. But I don't need to fight you for him. I'll fight WITH him against you. That's what mine means."

Lillith moved, like speed and skill. Jill took the backhand to the face and brought the dagger against her at the same time. She slashed open the perfect face from ear to lip. Lillith snarled and Jill laughed.

"Not just another pretty face, you mutt."

Lillith laughed, softly. "You are an alpha female. Yes. But you will not be one here. I will not step aside to let you take my pack. I will destroy you and take what's yours."

"Killing me won't make him want you. It won't make him submit to you."

Lillith rose and grabbed Jill. She threw her down on the table on her back. "This is why I need you. To make him choose to give up. You will fight and you will die and he will give up. But first? I will make sure that if you fight and win? That you will aid me in servicing the pack."

Jill spit in her face. It ran thick and ugly down that perfect countenance. Lillith turned to Fenrir. "Hold her down. And help me."

"Yes. Always."

"I will fucking end you both."

"You are human. You will do nothing." Lillith licked her face and jerked at Jill's clothes. "…but scream. And see what we do to humans who resist us."

Fenrir slapped her, hard enough that her head swam. She saw the knife, it flashed steely and cold in the soft light from the lamp beside them. Jill fought, screaming. They were right. She was going to scream.

And it flashed down in a flying arc toward her.

….

In the cell with Carlos and Grace, Mira was trying to figure out how to raise HQ. She was trying but the communicators didn't work all that well here. Why? All the steel? The snow? Or simply whatever evil was floating around this place?

There was a body in the corner of the cell. It was wrapped in burlap and curled toward the wall. It smelled awful. Carlos was sitting against the wall. Grace was lying on the floor, watching them with soulful eyes.

"What do you think is happening?"

"What else?" Mira answered Carlos' query, "They're torturing Jill. They're trying to get Leon to fight. Or give up. You and me? We're expendable. And fucked. We need a plan."

Grace made a sound.

Mira glanced at her.

She stood up. There was a black strap around her belly. Mira looked at it and at her face. She moved toward it.

It was the sword.

Leon's sword.

Mira took it from her belly. She petted her, looking in those eyes. "You clever girl."

In the corner, the body was stirring. Mira wielded the sword, waiting for it to rise. It did rise. But it wasn't a vampire and it wasn't a wolf. Although it was the pissed off rage of one.

It was Chris Redfield. Or might have been once. Now it was just a filthy mess. Grace paced, watching him. She sniffed the air and stepped up in front of Mira.

Mira, touched, petted her again.

He was stinking and gross and looked like a hairy man of the mountain. He was disgusting. He was in some kind of filthy shirt that was stick to his skin like glue. All those muscles were perfectly outlined, which was super hot, but ruined by the fact that he smelled like death. Carlos said, "Dude…ugh."

"Shut it, moron. Mira…give me the fucking sword." His voice was gravelly and low. He had a beard that reminded her of Sons of Anarchy or something. It worked on his face, somehow.

Grace growled at him. Mira shook her head and patted her. "It's ok. He's a friend. He looks like a gross hobo. But he's a friend."

Chris, all beard and shaggy hair, put his hand out. Mira handed him the sword. Carlos said, "Really? What if he's infected!?"

"He's not, idiot. He's immune. Remember? It's why were here."

Chris twirled the sword and seemed to know how to use. Maybe not Leon Kennedy good, but still good. He hit the button and the hilt extended. The excitement in his blue eyes under those heavy brows was sheer warrior. "Awesome. Where's Jill?"

"Trapped. Where else?"

"When that door opens, let's get her out."

"How?"

"Killing. How else? I took three of them with me when we got here. They figured I was some stupid asshat I guess. Kept coming at me. I wasn't alone and I wasn't expendable. The mutated ones were the hardest."

"You have to do a heart blow on them."

He glanced at Mira's face, "What?"

"The heart. They are vampires…sorta. Kennedy said the heart."

"Fucking Leon Kennedy. He knows everything. Or thinks he does. He's here?"

"Sorta."

He lifted a brow.

Carlos said, "It's kinda him."

"What does that even mean?"

"Long story."

Mira said, "You want to what, big guy? Make a last stand here or something? They'll slaughter us."

"No. They aren't that tough. Damnit Mira, I've trained you both for this kind of shit. Don't let me down here."

"Why not? You ran and hid. What kind of leader does that?"

He held her eyes. They stared at each other. And he finally spoke, gently, "I'm sorry. It was the right thing to do at the time. I have my reasons."

"You didn't feel the need to share them? With…anyone?"

Carlos felt the moment it clicked. OH. OHHHHH. He glanced back and forth between them. He looked at that hairy beard and her little face. Oh shit. These two? They were bumping uglies. Or close to it. Or had been something. Mira and the boss. She was doing a Jill Valentine on his balls. Whoa.

Honestly, previously, he'd have said Chris Redfield didn't even touch girls. He was sorta uptight and kind stupid about it. But he was touching Mira. Or she was trying. Hell.

"Now's not the time."

"Of course not. It's never the time for you. Right? MONTHS. You disappear for months. We exhausted every avenue on earth trying to find you. And this is it? That's all we get. You arrogant…asshole. We're TRAPPED IN HERE. TRAPPED. We could die…trying to save YOU. That deserves more than a fucking dismissal. Start fucking talking."

He held her gaze…and he started talking.

Shocked, Carlos sat down to listen.

He told them about the ledgers he and Ada had found.

"They contained information from what was being tested here. After Ashford went up in smoke, literally, they were still alive. The small crew of people here? They were scientists or researchers or something. They were on a secondary base not far from here. They came back and found the destruction. I think the woman, Lillith? I think she was experimenting with shit even then. She was mixing cocktails of crap and injecting herself. The big guy with her? He's just some fucking patsy she had that was her first success."

Chris turned, palming the sword as he paced, "She was fucking with wolf DNA and bat. She was mixing viruses and seeing what happened. Some of those creatures are still out there, warped and ugly and insane. The bat ones? They can hear you in the dark. If we come up against them? PRAY."

"We've met a few of the wolf ones."

"Yeah. They fashion themselves after werewolves. They are almost religious about it. They pray and infect others and bring more daily. Where are they getting them from? At first, I didn't know the answer…but then I remembered. The Mylan Jungle. It was the testing ground for all this shit. They were dropping it on the damn people there. The ones that turned? They became pack. The others? They became research."

Mira leaned on the wall, watching him, "What about the highschool?"

"I'm still trying to figure that part out. But it's linked somehow. All of this."

"How is she continuing to make samples? Ashford took most of Veronica with her? Right?"

Chris paused and looked at them. The air was full of so many things. And no time for any of it. He answered, "I think she always had a piece of her. I think she's connected to Alexia and Alfred. I just can't figure out how."

"Does Ada know?"

"My guess? You bet your fucking ass she does."

"So your great plan is just point and shoot?"

He held her eyes, "You got a better one?"

Carlos and Mira looked at him. They glanced at Grace. She seemed to growl her ascent. Mira shrugged. "What the fuck? Let's do it."

At this point, what did they have to lose?

Somewhere in the den, Jill Valentine was screaming. They could hear her. Chris rolled the sword in his hands.

"Hang on, Jill. We're coming." He faced them, "Start talking. Now. Tell me what I need to know."

"She said Ada Wong was going to be turned."

"She's here. Somewhere. We'll find her too. But what is happening?"

They told him. They started at the beginning and told him everything. They left out no details. It was Jill and Leon and the infection. It was Jill and Leon and the relationship. Chris listened, like a man who'd heard enough strange and unusual shit in his day to be never caught by surprise. He moved toward the wolf.

Grace studied him.

She let him pet her.

"You telling me Leon is one of them?"

"I'm telling you he's turning. Fast. We need you to stop it. We need him to save us. Kinda."

"You want me to wait here for Leon Kennedy to save me?"

Now Mira echoed him, "You got a better idea?"

Chris swirled the sword in his hands. He paced. He rolled his neck and shoulders. She watched him, big and full and endless. Carlos wasn't entirely wrong. They weren't sleeping together. But they were…friends. Sorta.

She flirted. It was her thing. But she didn't flirt with him. She never had.

One night, three beers into a twelve, she'd asked him to sleep with her though. Just like that. It was her way. It was what she did. She threw down, the Chris Redfield special. He'd considered. He was a business man, a fighter, and a gentleman. He'd said yes.

Apparently, he was also a man.

He'd carried her over his shoulder like a conqueror. He'd thrown her down in that hotel in Palm Springs and made her yell words that weren't anything else but gibberish and delight. He was a business man, a fighter, and a sexual deviant. Dirty, dirty, dirty and so amazing.

So yeah. There was that ONE time. And it was…Mira sighed. It was what it was. And it had been done. It made them friends. She was his type. She knew that. Sheva Alomar, she was his type. Although she didn't think he'd gone there either. He liked his woman small and feisty and apparently mixed race. Ethnic with an edge.

It made them…something. He was a good guy. She respected him. She kinda liked him. He was a hard man to know. He was very strict, almost painfully uptight. But he was all about the loyalty.

She knew he considered her important enough to feel bad about betraying her by disappearing.

Mira shifted. Carlos coughed.

"They'll offer to let you fight."

Chris met her eyes, curious.

"Yeah. It's what they do. They'll let you fight. Can you? If you have to?"

"You ever known the answer to that question to be no?"

"Not in recent memory, no."

"I'll fight. I'll fight Leon fucking Kennedy too if he gets in the way."

"He came here to help you. Don't be an asshole. He'd be safe in stasis now without that. Stop trying to prove you have a bigger cock."

He said nothing, turning back to look out the door. "This door opens, we either fight or we offer a challenge. Is that it?"

"That's it."

"Ok. Let's discuss this compound we're in."

"You know it."

"Oh yeah. We made a good deal of progress before they caught us. Better than knowing it? I know the way out."

Mira studied his bearded face. Carlos replied, "Good to have you back, Cap."

"Thanks. Any chance of getting HQ on the horn?"

"No. We can't raise them."

"No trouble. There are fail safes in place for that. What's the check in time?"

"It should be in about fifteen minutes."

"Ok. They'll come. Let's make sure we're alive when they get here." Chris turned back to the door and waited, feeling the worry in his bones. Jill, he thought desperately, don't do anything stupid until I find you.

But she was, apparently, already fucking Leon Kennedy. How much more stupid could you get?

…..

They came to the door. They opened it with a squeal of steel. And they tossed Jill inside. She was naked and trembling. His heart stopped.

Leon moved, fast and smooth. He grabbed her from the floor. His hands were trying to warm her. But she was plenty warm. She was covered in blood and breathing hard.

He was looking for wounds, looking for damage. Nothing.

He grabbed her face. "Are you alright?"

She gripped his wrists. "They want you to give in. They want you to give up. They said if you don't…if you lose…they'll rape me in front of the pack. They'll rape me while they have you watch. And then? They'll eat me."

He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. The fine trembling of rage in him was frightening. He could feel the thrill of the kill in his blood like lava and fire and fury. "I'll give up."

She was shaking her head. Shaking it. "No. You won't. You're going to go down there and fight them. You're gonna destroy them. They thought they could strip me naked, knock me around. They knocked me out.…I woke up naked and hanging on the wall. They were killing people while I watched. They were eating them."

He held her eyes, feeling the strength in her. He tried to give her more. But her eyes weren't wild. They weren't afraid. They were dark and almost hungry. Hungry for revenge? And what? She'd mentioned her darkness. She'd mentioned Wesker and what he'd done to her. How deep was it? How dark?

"They threw the blood on me. Soaked me with it."

"I'm so fucking sorry."

"Don't be. But they were so fucking wrong. God damn animals. They don't understand people at all. They thought they'd break me with that. They thought I'd beg you to give up. You won't. I won't let you. You kill them. Kill them all. And I will help you do it."

He held her eyes for a long moment. "Are you sure?"

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life. This ends. If they have Chris at all, he'll be dead without you. Take the deal. Fight them. You can win. I've never seen anything like you. You'll win. And I'll take the deal she offered me too."

"What?"

"Dominance is how to pack survives. She offered me the chance to fight for it. I'm going to take it."

He rose, shaking his head. He turned away from her. She rose, naked, beautiful and covered in blood. Something fired in his body, scaring him.

"I'm taking it. I won't let her win. Not anymore. This shit ends now. She'll offer Carlos and Mira the same deal, I'm sure of it. If you lose, they kill you or turn you. If you win? She said she'd let us go."

"She's lying." Leon said it softly. And she was interested to find him trying to stay away from her. Why? Was it the blood? Was it disgusting? She was kinda gross with it.

"Probably. But I can't sit there and watch you fight. I have to do this. It's all I've got."

Leon watched her, breathing fast and low. Oh, she thought, watching his eyes. He was staring at her body. He was unable to look away. She considered it, watching him.

"How are you feeling?"

"Hot. And angry."

Jill moved toward him. He held up a hand toward her. "Don't. The blood…it excites me. I'm sorry. Jesus. Here…"

He unhooked his vest and took it off. She watched him, curious. He stripped off the red shirt and held it out to her. "Put it on. Hurry."

He was shirtless, sweaty, and covered in dried blood. She was naked and dripping with it. The room was red, red, red and very full of things.

The primal urge to take what he wanted was lost under the man who wanted to take this woman, this woman in front of him, and hold her. He wanted to protect her. And he wanted to throw her down and mount her. God. Who was he? What was happening here?

"I'm sorry, Jill. I am. I came here to help. I've made things worse. I should have gotten in the fucking tank."

"There is no way you could have known about any of this. Never. This is not your fault. It's THEIRS. And we're going to destroy them…but I need your help."

She drew his attention to her face now. She was so calm. So very calm. It helped. It helped him level off the blood that boiled in his body. If she could stay calm, so could he.

"What?"

"I need you to turn me."

He froze, watching her. She nodded, slowly. "Yeah. I can't do it human. They'll kill me. They'll rip me apart. I need what you have. I need it."

"I don't know how to give it to you."

"Yes you do." She moved toward him. He backed up. She kept on moving.

It was the first time Leon Kennedy had wanted to run from anything in his life. He wanted to run from her. And the thing in him that wanted her to submit.

"Jill…" He breathed it, afraid of her. Of her? No. Of THIS. "It could kill you. We can find another way to do this. Are you sure?"

She grabbed his wrist and jerked him toward her. He went, making some sound. They slapped together, wet and desperate. She leapt, smooth and fast and hungry. She wrapped around his front. It was the shower and the desperation. She took his mouth, sucking his tongue so hard and fast that he could do nothing but capitulate.

Here, she thought, here he would give in. Here he would give up the fight. For her, to her, but never out there. Never. He had risked everything, himself, and his own soul to come here and fight for her. She would do no less.

She pulled back, gasping. "I need what you have. GIVE IT TO ME."

"How?" He breathed it, desperate for her. The fire in his skin, in his blood, was insane. He felt himself burst like a tiny bubble in his own head. He grabbed handfuls of her bloody hair and jerked her head back.

Jill made a little sound in her throat. "Yeah. Like that. Like that."

He threw her to the dirty mattress and unzipped himself. She laughed, alive for him in ways that had no name. There was no time for fucking. There was time for dying. But they'd be doing that soon enough. She opened her legs and he mounted her, shoving into her fast and hard and desperate. She was ready and she hungry for it.

She laughed, gasping, and rode his body. He held her down, hammering into her with a nearly maddening greed. And he drove his teeth into her throat.

It hurt. It straight up hurt. She screamed, bucking against him. And she echoed it. She clamped her teeth down on his chest and drew blood.

He growled, thundering into her body until she screamed loud and fast, humping and humping and coming apart in his arms. She smeared her face all over his chest, getting it in her face and eyes. She licked the coppery taste of it and rolled his nipple into her mouth to suck him.

She was there again, lost in the dark. There was Wesker and he was commanding her. He was making her his puppet. KILL, he'd said, and she did. She tore them down, ripped them apart. Animal? She was one. She was one. She'd been playing the human all these years but Wesker had stripped the girl away and left the animal behind. The animal wanted blood. She drove her teeth into the man above her and feasted on his body. Like she'd feasted on the madness Wesker had fed her all those years.

And she hit the wall of all that want, all that desperate greed, and the release of all those years of murder and mayhem and death….and her own horror at the want for it that still burned inside of her like a dirty secret. She milked his body inside hers, with her mouth sucking him into her, and burst through the orgasm around him screaming for it.

She cried out his name, cried out, "MORE!" And he gave it to her.

Leon came for her, came in her, holding her down and grunting. He sucked at her throat, at her body. And he filled her full of him. She laughed, laughed, and died in his arms, holding him against her.

They shivered and held on. She grabbed his face and met his eyes.

"Now…now we do this. We do this."

"You are partially immune, Jill…I don't think this will work."

"You got a better idea?"

She shifted and he pulsed inside of her. She gasped and bowed a little. He laughed now, dark and lost. "You keep fucking up my world, Jill Valentine. I'm lying on a filthy mattress about to be eaten alive by infected freakshows. And you managed to get me to throw down on you. Who am I?"

"Mine. You're mine. And I won't let them take you. Not without a fight."

The door to the cell opened. Fenrir stood there, grinning. "Ah. WOLVES. Mating before a fight. YES. What is your answer?"

Leon rolled his head up. Jill lay beneath him still, stroking his back. He answered, gruff and low, "I'm going to kill you. And I'm going to enjoy it."

"So be it. We will soon find out if you are as good as you think you are, Leon Kennedy. You lost to me once before…what will you do this time when you have no one to save you?"

Leon smiled, wolfish, "That's the trouble with animals. They just don't get it. You think I'm alone? I have my own pack, you idiot. And we save each other."

Fenrir slammed the steel door.

The silence was loud. Jill made a sound beneath him. He glanced down at her face. And the blue of her eyes had spilled red at the corners.

He took her mouth, slow and testing.

She laughed and locked her legs around his flanks. "Will you fight for me, Leon Kennedy?"

He grabbed her face and rolled his body inside of her. She gasped, flowing there beneath. "No. But I'll fight beside you."

"Let's get Chris, get the team, and get the hell out of here."

"That's the best plan I've heard yet."

"You're very susceptible to the Veronica portion here, Jill. Be afraid. She might be able to control you."

"No. That's the thing about wolves. The alpha controls you."

"She's the alpha."

"No. You are. You're the alpha. You can resist her. You just need to figure out how."

"You saying I can control you?"

They stared at each other and shared a kiss, wet, mouthy. She whispered, "Can't you?"

"I think it cuts both way."

They rolled apart and Leon moved to his vest. They'd divested the others of their weapons…but he still had his. They hadn't taken the Sumbitch. They hadn't taken the Xenodysmorphia. And they hadn't taken his phone.

He curled, shirtless, on the dirty mattress beside Jill. He pulled up the data they'd sent him. They huddled together to read it.

Somewhere inside all the mythology, all the natural selection, all the history was the answers. They just didn't think they'd have the time to find it. They had no choice, they had to fight. They just had to survive long enough to wait for the back up to burst in and save the day.

Leon watched those odd eyes of her read the screen. He was so afraid. So terribly afraid. That he'd fed her the darkness that had haunted him his whole life.

And that there was no hope for any of them now…but to die while it waited…shrieking.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT: Packs and Puppets

Antarctica: The Den of the Wolf

They read and they read. The data was endless, it was impossible. They'd never devour it all. She watched his face while he absorbed, his eyes flicking and feeding on it. She touched his face while he read, touched his mouth.

The fire in her blood was insane. She knew now what he'd meant. She was her but not her. She was something else entirely

He set down the phone, finally. "Fights of dominance can be fought with a proctor."

"A what?"

"A chosen warrior."

"For instance?"

"Mira can choose a champion. Since she's a lesser and isn't pack, exactly, she could choose another to fight in her stead."

"Like you?"

"Yeah. Like me."

"You would fight for Mira?"

"She came here, she fought them. She could have ran. She stayed. I got her into this mess; I'll get her out. It's that simple."

"Would you fight for Carlos?"

Leon laughed, shaking his head, "What an image. You think he'd ask?"

"He would. He's the type to be smart before brave."

"Gotcha. I would…for you. Because he's your friend."

Her hands traced over his chest, smoothing and petting. She traced his bite mark on that chest. It thrilled her. She scooted closer and rubbed her face all over him. He watched her, feeling the roll of it in his blood.

Jesus.

He grabbed her face. "Stay with me."

"I'm here."

"Yeah. I know that phrase well." He rose and moved to the vest on the ground. He grabbed it and pulled the suppression shot from it. "Come on. Come get some."

"We can't. We need to be at full speed."

"Not yet. We don't know when they'll come get us for the fight. For now? I need you sane. I can't have you leaping on my cock and licking my face."

"…you like that though."

He laughed and injected himself. His body jerked, his eyes bled back to blue with an edge of red. He shivered. And she felt her blood boil at the sight of him.

"Come fuck me. Once more. Like a battle preparation. Come inside me and I'll be ready."

He stared at her face. He licked his lips and turned away. He breathed, rolling his neck. Leon felt the shimmer of that want in his bones. They needed to get this shit out of them. Now. He'd given it to her. He was insane. And she'd…what? Manipulated him?

Yes. She had. They both knew it. But she was ready now. Could she face Lillith? He didn't know. He didn't know anything.

She grabbed him from behind and spun him around. She licked a slick, wet line up his chest. He shivered…and shoved the needle into her chest. She blinked, blinked again, and gasped.

Her eyes were blue again, like his. She shivered and grabbed his arms. He jerked the needle out of her.

"Sorry."

"No sorry. Remember you can control it. You can. Just focus on what you can feel that isn't the blood. Forget your blood. Focus on this." He put his hand over her heart, held it there. "You're in there. Remember that."

"No. No." She put her hand over his. "YOU'RE in there. That's what this is all about. It was about finding Chris. But it was ALWAYS you. That day in Sri Lanka. Now. It's you. I won't forget again."

They kissed, soft now. And it was just two people that loved each other.

"Remember the silver. Remember that fire works well. She can't control you. Or couldn't before. This? It might change the game. She might be able to now."

"So be it. I'll rip her face off and enjoy it."

She glanced at his face, held his eyes. He knelt, holding her, sweeping his thumbs over her cheeks. She caught his wrists and held on.

"She means to have you, Leon. You know that."

"A hundred thousand years enslaved to her would never be enough. Don't you know that about me? I'm all in baby."

She smiled at him, "I should tell you. I should tell you about Wesker and my time with him. I should. You need to understand that to understand me. I couldn't do it in front of the others. But you can ask. You can ask anything. It wasn't like us. I want you to know that. He was…I was his slave. His unwilling slave. It was ugly and awful….I NEVER feel that way with you. I want you to know that."

"You don't have to tell me. It won't change how I feel about you, Jill. Whatever it was, whatever it made you…it brought you to me. I wouldn't have you without any piece of your past. You don't owe me any explanations."

"When we finish this? I'll tell you. Because you should know who you're hitching your wagon to."

"Alright. There's no judgement here, Jill. Ever."

"I know that. I want you to know me. All of me. In ways…I've never let anyone. Not Chris. Ever."

"Why?"

"Chris would have blamed himself for leaving me there. It wasn't his fault. But he'd feel it."

"I understand that, entirely."

She patted the bed.

He flopped down beside her on the dirty mattress. She was in his red shirt now with it buttoned around her. She curled against him, putting her head on his chest.

"Gertie should know now. She'll know we're in trouble."

Jill nodded running her hand over his belly. Each muscle, each line, it filled her with a kind of peace that was interesting to her. Was that what it was like to be a wolf? The petting soothed you? She finally understood dog piles. It was all about touching and comfort.

His hand was petting her bottom. He was rubbing her taut little butt almost lazily. She rolled her leg over his and curled into him. They kissed, lazy and slow.

There was nothing else to be done now but wait. To wait. And to wonder when the time to fight would come for them again.

She held his gaze. "Do we die here, Leon Kennedy?"

"Maybe. But when is that ever a surprise for people like us?"

…

Lillith paced in her bedroom, knocking over a flagon of wine. It spilled, red and beautifully, across the marble floor. She growled and upturned the table beside her. It clattered, loud and broken.

Fenrir, standing in the corner, lifted his brows at her.

"You are angry, my queen?"

"Do you know what is taking so long? He should be mine by now. MINE. Bring him to me."

"Is that wise?"

"I have waited for him, Fenrir. We have both waited. We need an alpha male. Without him? The pack will begin to challenge more often. They will come for you first and then for me. We have been the architects of our own destruction here. We need to hold it all together. I need him to do that."

"Yes. Yes we do."

"I need an alpha male. When I turned you, I thought…but no. You are not alpha."

Fenrir shifted, ashamed. "I have tried to be, my queen."

"I know that. But alpha isn't made, Fenrir, it is inherent. You said it yourself. Tell me what you felt there."

"He is alpha. He stepped into the hallway. He was nothing but a mortal man. He had no hope to succeed. The girl? She was with him, yes, but behind him. He stood between her and the pack. It was…nothing I had seen before in a mortal. He should have run. And yet he didn't."

"Yes. You threatened his mate. Damnit. I need her to die or to breed. I need her gone. Fenrir, if she is alpha? She could take the pack. Do you understand that? They could take the pack from us."

"Do you want me to kill him, my queen?"

Lillith paced, rolling along the floor like something that was all speed and strength. Fenrir watched her, craving her. She would never submit to him and so he would never mate with her. But he wanted to offer his throat to her and wait for her to take it. It was the way of the pack.

Lillith leapt on her bed and rolled amongst the blankets. She lay on her back, staring up at the canopy. "No. I need him. He is alpha. I knew it the moment I saw him. Bring him to me. Bring his mate with him. It is time to show him what it means to be pack."

She waited, watching the breeze move across the lacy red border of the canopy. She needed to make this work. The pack was growing, it was changing. The battle for an alpha male was daily. She watched them fight for succession, for dominance. She wanted one, any one of them, to show that they were alpha. But none had. She had awoken on the floor of that cafeteria after her conversion and she'd known how to bring them to her.

Fenrir had been Charles Fenley than, just a man, just a scientist who'd really been nothing to her. She'd grabbed his ankle from the floor, thrown him to his back, mounted him and ripped open his throat. He'd survived and he'd become pack.

Somewhere, Alexia was thrilled. The lycanthropy virus she'd concocted was nearly flawless. The only draw back was the host. It didn't bond the same to every host. It was variable and flawed in that regard. It created the mutated creatures that resembled vampires and the man wolves. She had yet to see one be able to make a partial change like her.

She flicked her hand and the nails of her hand extended into claws. She raked them over the bedspread. She needed to hold the pack. Without her, they would run rampant. They would pillage and destroy. They were not perfect, they were flawed. She needed the right blood to perfect the virus.

The door opened and Cassius, Fenrir, and Adina brought in the man in question. She needed his blood. But she needed him to submit to get it. He was alpha, taking it without his permission was a killing offense.

Fenrir shoved him into a chair. He was shirtless and very beautiful. The mate was in his shirt, still sticky with dried blood. Lillith lifted her hand. "Take her. Watch her while she bathes. Bring her back."

Adina grabbed her and dragged her into the large bathroom beside her chambers. Jill watched him, unsure. Leon winked at her and she went, quietly.

He lounged, one arm draped over the table beside him. Lillith knelt on the bed. She gestured to the bed beside her.

Leon lifted his brows.

Fenrir moved to make him.

Lillith shook her head. "You've chosen to fight."

"Does that surprise you?"

"Yes. You would risk your mate?"

"She makes her own choices. I don't make her do anything. Humans? We don't make our women submit."

"Ah…and yet? You want her to. It is all over you."

Fenrir sniffed his face and Leon eyed him, brow lifted.

"They were mating when I found them."

"Ah. Yes. That is good. It is. Leon Kennedy, you are virile. You will give us pups. The first born to the pack? I believe so." And that was it, Lillith mused, the virus was one thing. The genetic birth of the first born wolf? It would be perfect. "I would have your pups."

Leon shifted, eyeing her. "You think I will just what? Impregnate you?"

"You will. You are alpha. I am alpha. It is done."

He rose and Lillith slid off the bed toward him. He waited and she moved around him, trailing her fingers across his chest. Her nails scraped over the smooth skin of his side.

"You are beautiful. Your build is lithe and muscled. Even your mortal body is wolf. You will mate only with an alpha. You were produce children perhaps with the rest of the pack. If you choose, you could mate with all of the females. But you won't…will you?"

"What can I say? I'm a loyal guy."

Lillith, tiny in her bare feet, barely reached his shoulder with the top of her head. She licked his chest and scent rolled against him. He watched her, quiet and thoughtful.

She licked the old blood from his stomach and the side of his chest. Her eyes rolled up the line of his body as she rubbed her face against him like a cat. No…like a wolf.

She put her teeth in him and he made a grunt, grabbed her arms, and picked her up. Her feet dangled. Fenrir shifted and she shook her head. She wrapped her legs around his waist and anchored herself to him.

"Yes. Alpha. Submit to me. I will let them all go. I need you to rule the pack. It is not too late."

"How are you pack? Tell me. Don't talk about the moon and the wolf, Lillith. Give me the science of it."

Lillith stayed around him like a monkey, curling against his body and licking his throat. He let her stay, hoping to encourage her to speak. He let her hands stroke his back and the curve of his ass. A small sacrifice to get what he needed from her.

"I was just a little scientist once. Just a girl. A girl in awe of the Ashfords. On Rockfort Island, I was the middle of the pack. No one saw me, no one cared. Alexia? She cared. She saw potential in me."

Lillith slid her hands into the back of his pants and cupped his bare body. She traced the curve of his buttocks in her palms and licked a wet line from jaw to ear. "She taught me. She showed me. She was beautiful. She was perfect. Her hair, her body…she was beautiful. I knew…I would love her forever."

Lillith leapt off his body, raking her nails up his back. He made some sound and she grabbed his arm and tossed him on the bed. She leapt atop him, straddling him. Her hands held his above his head as she licked his mouth. "She was wise. She knew Veronica was flawed but almost…ALMOST perfect. I was a virologist in my mortal life. I knew the wolf and the bat DNA that was being spliced into my creation was nearly perfect as well. I bonded the components…looking for the failure. Was it in the promoter? Where RNA polymerase attaches, signaling the start of the gene?"

She licked inside of his mouth now and he made some sound. Her eyes flared, watching him. "Yes…my taste. You feel it. Alpha, Leon Kennedy. ALPHA."

Her hands ran down his sides and her face rubbed against his breast bone. "Was it in the Operator? Where the repressor binds, stopping the transcription of that gene? Was my virus capable of regulating the expression of genes? It worked, I KNEW it worked. But would it work on all hosts the same? Was the failure in the eurkaryote regulation? Was it on the double helix of the host? DNA is wound around a core of eight protein molecules, the result resembles beads on a string. The protein molecules are histones and each individual bead is called a nucleosome. If the bead is altered, what is stop the virus from creating…something else? If the pack were to flourish, could it be genetically created to be…immortal?"

She licked his stomach and he held her face, shaking his head. She shook his hands loose and rolled her face over his groin. He made that sound again and she laughed, pinning him to the bed with her hands on him. "There are four types of gene mutation, Leon Kennedy: Point, frameshift, silent and nonsense. There are original and mutant strains of each kind. Any of these mutations can produce oncogenes which activate uncontrollable cell division. This is the flaw in the lycanthropy virus I've created. It bonds to the house and activates gene mutation, the subsequent oncogenes result in the varied forms. The hosts that have the right nucleosome become pack. The rest? They become weapons."

She jerked at his pants, probably planning to free him from them. He shook his head, grabbed her wrists and rolled her beneath him. She laughed, licking his face. "The virus was imperfect. I bonded it to G and the result was…volatile. I bonded it the V complex created from Veronica. Better…but still incomplete. I bonded it to T and something began to grow. But it was still imperfect. I needed the final component. It was the right nucleosome. It was wolf and bat that worked as the catalyst. And the lycanthropy virus was born. The first stages were…frightening. What came from the earth and rose was…not pack. It was zombie and yet not zombie. It was vampire and yet not. It was not controllable. I disposed of them, my first children."

Lillith wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed his mouth. He watched her, listening. She could see the intelligence on him now. He was learning what she said, filing it away somewhere in that fertile mind of his. Good. An intelligent alpha would be an excellent ruler. And she'd missed have someone who understood science.

"Fenrir was my first child born of blood. I feasted, he survived. I realized that the bite created pack while the injection or the airborne often resulted in the mutant and the insane. The host was the key, you see. And then…THEN…there was Chris Redfield."

She rocked on his body, rubbing on the gruff feel of his pants. "Even the name is wolf. Redfield. He is native American, yes? And he is IMMUNE. Fenrir watched him. He wanted him for alpha. But Redfield cannot turn. He cannot be pack. Why do I keep him? His dominance excites me. I watched him fight the wolves. He is warrior. He is dominant. He excited the females. The female with him? I scented her. She is hot for him. I need his blood to create a better virus. I need him to create my pack to be invincible. His bitch that he travels with is dominant. She will make a beta female. I will turn her and watch her fight with me. She killed like a ghost. Brilliant."

"You won't get her to fight for you. She's volatile."

"She's controllable. I can see the intelligence in her. She will go where the safety is. And she will go there to protect Chris Redfield."

"You think Ada Wong will sacrifice herself for Chris Redfield? Have you MET her?" He laughed a little bit now. Lillith made a sound and jerked down his zipper. He grabbed her hand, she slapped his face. It was sharp and fast. It hurt.

He made a sound and she flared her eyes. "Yes. Alpha. You have to EARN the right to mate. Give over your bitch, you will have to make me BLEED before I let you mount me."

Shit.

He was hard. Just like that. He was hard. His body liked that idea a lot. She made a sound and licked his neck. He grabbed her face and her throat. She tried to put her hands in his pants and he pushed her off of him.

She rolled across the bed, laughing.

"So not so loyal after all."

Leon laughed himself, rolling to his knees on the bed. "Are you kidding? I've been getting wood for girls since puberty, darlin. Don't mean I'm gonna throw you down and fuck you."

Lillith stalked him across the bed. She slid up his body. He pushed her back and she slapped him again. He growled and she liked it. She liked it a lot. She rubbed at him through his pants.

Fuck it, he thought, he was tired of playing nice with this bitch. He backhanded her. It rang down his arm. Fenrir made a move toward the bed as beads of blood flew from her mouth.

But Lillith held her hand up. She pressed her bleeding mouth to Leon's. "What stops you, I wonder? Love? Do you love your mate?"

"Haven't you been listening? That's what humans do, Lillith. We LOVE. It's why I won't ever let you win."

She licked her own bloody mouth and ran it over his. She traced the seam of his lips with her bloody tongue. He held her away from him by her arms, shaking a little.

She said, "Open your mouth. Or I will have her beaten."

He opened his mouth. She licked inside it, spilling the taste of her blood into it. He shuddered. Part of it was disgust, the other part was the virus in his fucking blood that liked it. He had to get this shit out of him.

Lillith leaned back a little. "Would you mate with me to protect her? If I threatened her, would you consent?"

The bathroom door opened and Jill was shoved into the room. Her hair was wet and braided down her back and she still wore his shirt. Leon shoved Lillith away and rolled across the bed.

She went into his arms, holding on.

He took her face, scanning it. "You're alright?"

"I'm fine. They didn't touch me. Apparently, you've been getting touched a lot."

He smirked a little, kissing her mouth. "Jealous?"

"Of that psychotic bitch? Are you kidding?"

Lillith rolled to her feet on the bed. She eyed them. Her teeth gritted a little. "I offered you a choice, Jill Valentine. What is your answer?"

Jill smiled, happily, "What else? I'll fight you."

"I can smell that you are pack now," Lillith rolled to her feet, "It won't save you. And you won't fight me. I am alpha. You are not. You will not challenge me."

"Why not? Afraid I'll win?"

Leon grabbed Jill's arm now, slightly. Oh. She glanced at his face. He shook his head, ever so slightly. OH. OH oh oh . He didn't think she could win.

That was just….insulting. It was stupid. This bitch? She was two feet tall. She was a midget with sharp teeth. She was cake. Was he kidding?

Lillith turned back, eyeing her. This was too easy. "Agreed. I will fight you."

Fenrir looked excited now. He rolled his fists and snapped his teeth.

"Good. I'm hell on wheels honey, just saying."

"Stupid girl. You will be nothing when I'm done with you. But me? I will have your head and your place. So there is good news. Think of what I offer you, Leon Kennedy. My partner in this world is a place of esteem. Hers? It's the place you go to die. I offer you the ability to turn her aside. Uncouple yourself from her, come to me freely. I will release them all."

"Chris?"

"I need him."

"I will only consider it if he's part of it. And I know that once you give your word, you will keep it. Or you dishonor the pack."

"Yes. I will consider him as part of the deal. You consider how badly you wish to protect your foolish mate. She will die against me. You know it. She is pack but she is not me. She will die, screaming."

Leon said nothing now. But waited until they were again in their cell.

Jill bounced happily when the door was slammed shut. "Woot. Going according to plan right?"

Leon said nothing. He was facing the far wall. She put her hand on his back, gently.

He shook her loose and spun back to face her. "What have you done?"

"What?"

"Jill! She will KILL YOU!"

"Hey! I can handle myself with that sallow faced bitch. She's tiny. All she's got is speed and weird wolf powers on her side. I can HANDLE it."

Leon put both of his hands flat on the wall and breathed. She watched him, seeing the shiver up his spine. Feeling bad to have upset him, she slid around his front between him and the wall and kissed his mouth.

He shook his head, "Stop. Stop it. Stop it!"

He grabbed her arms now, shaking her. "I shouldn't have infected you. Damnit. She's gotten exactly what she wants. You challenged her. And now she can kill you and have everything."

"HEY! I don't die that easy."

"Jill…this shit in our blood? It's HER virus. She created. It's lycanthropy and not. It's worse. Because she's the CREATOR. Do you hear me? She knows exactly what she's doing. She played me like a fiddle in there. She played you too. Whatever she thinks she sees in me, she won't stop. She absolutely WILL NOT STOP until she has it. She can't take it. She claims I'm alpha. She needs me to submit. You just handed me to her."

Jill paused, watching his face. "What are you saying?"

"I won't let you fight her. If she offers Chris? I'm taking the deal."

She grabbed his face. "Shut up. You idiot. Don't fucking talk like that. Do you know what would happen with you in their hands? I've SEEN you. She's seen you! She wants you for what you can do here. You'll train these freaks to fight us. You'll turn and be her puppet. Leon…Leon…" She stroked his face, shook her head, "You don't want to be her puppet. She'll do more than own you. She'll destroy you. She'll hollow you out. You'll learn to need the kill. You'll learn to crave it. Wesker never touched me. Ever. But she will! She will rape you and use you and fill her ugly little belly with all your perverse monster babies…Jesus. Do you know what happens to us if you Darth Vader?"

He was silent, watching her.

"You will kill us. You will kill me. You can't protect me by submitting. You will be killing me. Killing us both. And helping her take over anything she touches. You'll be her right hand, her left hand, her monster. She'll forge her blades in the fires of your regret and use them to cut open the world. Don't. Don't submit. Please…" She shook her head, desperate, "I'd rather die fighting. I'd rather die."

Undone. He gathered her close to him. He held her as she shook. He put his face in her neck. "Alright. Alright. I won't. I won't."

"Fight. Please. I will fight. Chris, if he's here? He will fight her. If we die? We die. But we have to FIGHT."

What had she seen? What had she done? He hurt for her. He bled for her. Maybe she'd never say. Maybe he'd never know. But he knew enough now. He knew she'd been the slave to the dark master. He knew she'd been the unwilling Frankenstein's monster. She'd been the human servant to the dark lord of destruction. Jesus. If he wasn't dead already, Leon would have hunted him down to hollow out his bones and destroy him for her.

An RPG up the ass? It had been too little punishment.

She grabbed him close to her. He kissed her, softly.

And the door of the cell opened.

"It is time," Fenrir said with a grin, "The first battle begins. Your small female prepares to fight."

Leon shifted, studying him. "Does she know she can request a champion?"

"She does. She has chosen to fight herself."

Jill made some sound. Leon shook his head. "Let me see her. Let me speak with her."

"No. The challenge is accepted. She will fight Adina. It is done. Prepare yourselves. If she wins, she is free. If she loses? She will turn pack or die. There is no other way."

He waited, watching them. "Now you come and see how your "pack" does versus mine. You will see our place of power and where you and I will dance."

There was no choice now. It was time to find out how well fists stood up to claws.


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE: TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

Antarctica: The Den of the Wolf

They were dragged together through the corridors of the den. As they moved, Leon took note of where they went and what they passed. The rooms were long and narrow, the smell of blood and sweat was prevalent. He could feel the intelligence and hunger of those they passed.

Jesus. It was like walking deeper into a prison filled with starving souls. He just knew they were picturing what their bones looked like, what their flesh tasted like. He met the eyes of one woman they passed and she sniffed him. She saw something on his face that had her stepping back and bowing her head.

Jill, in his red shirt, managed to look proud and strong. She wasn't even the least dressed of those they passed. No one seemed concerned about nudity here. Clearly wolves didn't care about such things as clothes.

Fenrir stopped at a large iron door. He jerked it open and gestured. "Go. See your "pack". Say your goodbyes. The first challenge begins in twenty minutes."

Jill went through the doors first. Leon followed her and stopped, turning his head slowly to the huge man beside him. They held eyes for a long moment. Leon said, quietly, "Be sure she's worth dying for, Fenrir. I will kill you out there."

"Maybe. But you will not be so pretty when it is over."

Leon shook his head and went into the chamber.

Mira was strapping the sword across her back. She was tying her hair up. Carlos was sitting against the wall on the floor. Grace was lying on the floor, watching them.

But that wasn't what Jill saw. It wasn't anywhere close to what Jill saw. None of that registered. She breathed, she stopped.

Because standing there in the room was the only thing that mattered any way.

"Oh my god…CHRIS!"

He turned and she was already running. He laughed and Leon watched the hard expression on his hairy face completely change. Soft, he mused, the big guy was soft on her. He scooped her up in mid run and spun around with her.

Jill grabbed his beard in her hands. "What is THIS!? Sons of Anarchy shit."

"Happens without a razor. God! Look at you! I was afraid of what they'd do to you."

"Where have you BEEN, you big idiot!? I've gone crazy looking for you."

"I had to go under. I had to. I'm sorry." They stood there hugging. Leon lifted a brow. Mira shrugged at him. How to explain the dynamic of that weird friendship?

Chris turned to look at him over her head. "What's this you're wearing, Valentine? You trying to start a fashion trend? I, personally, hope it catches on."

She laughed and he set her away from him. She turned back to Leon.

Chris came toward him. They eyed each other silently for a long moment. Finally, Chris said, "Kennedy."

"Redfield."

"This your fucking mess we're in?"

"Actually? I think it's your fucking mess, Redfield. I'm just the guy they sent to try to find you. This shit? Happened trying to do that."

"Fuck." Chris turned away, pacing. "Someone talk sense into this girl over here." He gestured to Mira. "Please. She's gonna fucking die out there."

"Thanks for having faith in me, big guy. Seriously."

The door of the cell creaked open and in walked Ada Wong.

She managed looked flawless even though she was filthy and mostly naked. She had on an oversized t-shirt in gray and not much else. She stopped, studying the patrons in the room.

Chris moved toward her. Curious, Jill watched them. It was fine. Really. But then he touched her. He touched Ada Wong. He cupped the side of her face and turned it to look at the wound on her cheek. Oh, Jill thought with a little confusion, oh. Really?

She watched them a little more. They were speaking quietly. She shook her head and pulled away from him. Oh. Click click click. Interesting.

Mira sighed and moved to the door leading into what would be the battleground.

Jill glanced at her. Carlos lifted his brows and wiggled them. Jill blinked. And blinked again. Oh. Seriously? She glanced back at Chris. Wow, she thought objectively, still waters ran deep here. Her BFF was boffing how many women here? She wanted to laugh and would have…if they weren't ass deep in werewolves and totally fucking screwed.

Ada said, "Leon…long time, no see."

"Ada. I'd say it's a pleasure but it rarely is."

Ada stepped forward. She was direct and very concise. "Here's what I can tell you. They have weaknesses. Silver, cold steel, and fire."

Leon said, "I know. We know."

She studied him and smiled a little, wryly, "Of course you do. They are fast but inefficient when you blind side them." She turned to Mira, "I will fight for you."

Surprised, everyone looked at her.

Ada continued, "You can choose a proctor. A champion. I will be yours."

Leon shook his head, moving forward, "Don't be stupid. I'll do it. I've got their speed, their strength. I can do it. The rest of you just stay here."

Ada eyed him, drolly, "You have their weakness as well. Shall I show you?"

"Why not?"

She shrugged and turned to him. He waited and she finally gestured in a come hither move. Amused, he rushed her. And he didn't do it human fast, he poured on the speed of it. She waited and at the last moment, she rolled, reached under her shirt and pulled her grapple gun. She fired it into the ceiling, hit the trigger, and swung out. He turned, tracked her, and she released the trigger. She came at him like a dart and he went flat to the floor to avoid feet in his face. She fired it off again in midair, zipped herself across the room and dropped.

He studied her, considering.

She said, "I can out maneuver them. Give me the sword. I will destroy them."

Mira considered her. They looked at each other. Mira said, finally, "Give me that gun."

"Don't be a stupid girl," Ada admonished her, "You can't win."

"I'm not gonna die a coward in this room while you fight for me. You want to help me? Give me the gun."

"If you die out there, they'll take this…and what then? I won't have it for my own challenge."

"I won't die."

Chris said, softly, "Don't be stupid, Mira."

She lifted her brows at him. He looked back her, steady. She laughed a little. "Siding with your girlfriend, huh? Figures. Carlos?"

He glanced up from the floor, curious. She said, "You planning to choose a champion?"

Carlos grinned a little. He pointed at Leon. Leon laughed a little and shrugged. Jill said, "See? I told you so."

Chris said, quietly again, "Mira…come here."

She shrugged and followed him to the far side of the room. She met his eyes. She looked tiny next to his big body. Jill tried to picture them bumping uglies. The image was so odd. She was a little bit of a thing. He'd crush her. Maybe that was the draw though.

"Don't go out there and die to get back at me."

Mira studied his face. She laughed now, softly, "You arrogant dick. This isn't about you. I'm not a coward. I don't let you fight my battles. I don't let Kennedy fight them either. I can take care of myself. I don't need your little girlfriend over there fighting for me either thanks. I'm good. You and me? We're good. We got sweaty, we had a good time. Let's not make it more than that."

He studied her face. She held his gaze; no flinching.

"Damnit, Mira."

"We all die sometime, Red. Maybe today is that day."

The door opened to the battleground. Two wolfmen were there. They were tall and frightening. They were hunched and had faces with muzzles that were filled with ugly teeth. Their bodies were warped and missing patches of fur at the ankles and the wrists. The hunchback look was prevalent and scary. It turned their gray fur and red eyed faces into something sinister and horror movie gross.

Mira shuddered.

One spoke, slurring and growling, "It is time. Follow."

Mira nodded and started forward. Chris grabbed her and spun her back. She looked at his hands on her arms and lifted her eyebrows.

"God damnit, Mira. You'll die out there. Let me fight for you."

She smiled a little, kinda sad now, "Chris Redfield, the window of time for you to fight for me is long past. I don't need a hero, honey. I'M the hero today."

She turned to follow the wolves. She took two steps, considered and turned back. "But what the fuck?" She leapt on him and he stumbled, catching her as she wrapped around him like a monkey and kissed him. She grabbed his beard and kissed him, hard.

And she leapt down.

Dazed, he watched her.

"Yeah. Thanks. Good luck to me, right?" She passed by Ada Wong and gave her a look. Ada smiled, impressed. If she'd have lifted her leg and pissed on him, the message couldn't have been clearer.

Mira passed by Leon and said, "Yeah. How about you handsome? Want to throw some more luck at me?"

Laughing, Leon cupped her face and kissed her. She popped off his mouth and smacked her lips. She slapped Jill on the ass as she passed her. "Lucky bitch."

Jill hugged her, holding on, afraid. "Let me fight for you."

"Can't do it. I'm an idiot." Mira smiled and looked at Carlos. "Well?"

"Oh? Yeah. You bet." He kissed her and made her laugh.

"Thanks. Ladies and gentlemen? I bid you adieu." She followed the wolves out of the room without another backward look.

Chris made a sound and punched the wall. He cursed, quietly, "Stupid woman. Stupid, stubborn woman."

Jill lifted her brows at him. "Really?"

"What?"

"Really?"

"Shut up."

"Mira?"

"Shut up, Valentine."

"She's so short."

He laughed, rolling his eyes.

The other door opened and there was Lillith. She gestured with a flourish, "Come. Sit with me. The fight begins. You should have the best seats to see your friend fail."

They followed her, silent now and afraid. The battleground was a wide open dirt pit with steel beams criss crossing over the top. Mira was standing in the middle of it, rolling the sword in her hands.

There were wolves and ugly mutant vampires lounging and sitting around the pit on the ground and on crude risers constructed out of wood. Lillith was seated at a long table to one side and she gestured so they could sit with her. It faced the pit, offering the viewer a front row seat.

They were served platters of food to eat while the fight was happening. They were offered wine. It was so polite. It was frightening.

The crowd started howling and stomping. Adina, a tall thing as naked as the day she was born, came into the pit. Dirt and dust kicked up around her as she moved. She paused, grinning. And then she made a loud, high, horrible howl. The room echoed it, scaring the shit out of Jill where she sat to Leon's left. He grabbed her hand under the table.

Adina faced Mira, studying her. She flashed her teeth and closed her eyes. Mira watched her, waiting.

Adina's perfect breasts shivered. She gasped. Her pretty face cracked down the middle like an egg. Lillith grabbed Leon's other hand and pressed it to her chest.

"Watch…watch and see. See what you will become. It is beautiful."

Adina screamed, falling to her knees. Her hair exploded out of her head in a burst of fluid and blood. And she had ears on her naked skull now. Her breasts spilled over with fur, red and ruined. Her chest split apart with a crack and snap of breaking bone. She tore her own flesh away in chunks and threw it as her thighs snapped and split, showing bone and muscle and spilling blood and a clear, gelatinous goo upon the ground. Her face changed, the muzzle appearing as the jaw popped and elongated. The bones shifted and broke and she started howling.

She rose now, eight feet tall and crooked in places. She sniffed, twitched her ears, and gnashed her teeth. Wolfman with exposed tissue and bone beneath the red ruin of her patchy furred body. Disgusting. Horrifying. It wasn't beautiful, Leon thought watching her move, it was infection. She was infected and dying from it. Each time they changed, they lost more of themselves. How long until the change was permanent?

Adina's fingers exploded into ten inch long talons, her claws slashed and missed Mira by an inch as she rolled away. They circled each other. Carlos said, quietly, "Is it cowardly to have you fight for me?"

Leon looked at him. He held that look for a long moment.

"Yes."

"Well shit."

"It's also smart."

Adina raced at her. Mira rolled left, swung the sword, and caught her across the arm with it. The sword was sharp and the blade was deft. It split skin and spilled blood. It wouldn't be able to kill her with the infusion in the blade of course, because there was no infusion for this virus. There was no inoculation. They were on the own with nothing but skill and desperate hope.

Adina roared and slapped her. The hit was hard. It threw Mira across the room like a swatted fly. Chris tried to get to his feet and Jill grabbed his hand, holding him in his seat.

"Don't. You can't help her. You'll get her killed. Stay down."

She watched him struggle with the truth of it. She watched his face. Mira was getting to her feet now. She rolled and missed losing her head by inches. Adina drove her across the pit lunging and slashing and howling. Mira was a step ahead until she wasn't anymore.

The final slash caught her across the chest. She gasped and swung the sword in the same moment. It hit the wolfman that was Adina across the muzzle that dived desperately for her face.

Adina retreated, bleeding and tossing her head, roaring.

Mira went down to her knees. She had one hand over her chest. The slash was deep and bad. She'd gotten her with two claws across the breastbone to the shoulder. She was bleeding, badly.

Chris turned his hand and Jill slid their fingers together. He gripped, hard.

Oh. She studied him. More than just a girl he'd thrown down on. How much more? You could never tell with Chris. The concern could be entirely related to friendship. He was the best guy on earth at hiding his feelings.

Adina raced at her now.

On the ground, Mira gained her feet. She slipped in her own blood. The wolf leapt, lunging for her face. She spun left, the world slowed down. She brought the sword up in a swinging arc and Adina just wasn't fast enough. It slashed, sharp and deep, it caught her across the hip and up across the stomach. She screamed and hit the ground, spraying blood and spitting dust up into the air like a tornado.

Curious, Lillith said, "She's a fighter. She's going to win."

Mira advanced on her and lifted the sword to finish her off. Adina rolled, drove up from the ground where she was in a pool of her own blood and the steaming stench of her intestines. She drove up anyway, dying and howling, and kicked her.

Mira was lifted off her feet and thrown out like she weighed nothing. She flew across the room and hit one of the supports for the ceiling. It shuddered and down she came, still.

Ada shook her head, sipping the wine in front of her. Stupid, stubborn girl. Eager and young and stupid. Too busy having her panties in a twist about Chris Redfield to be smart. She was going to die for pride.

She spoke now, softly, "What are the rules on calling for a champion?"

Surprised, Lillith looked down at her. "She chose to fight alone."

"If she were to ask for one now?"

They studied each other, the spy and the alpha werewolf. They studied each other where they sat. Finally, Lillith said, "If she asks, I'll allow it."

"Good."

"You have no love for her. I can't even smell any like on you. Why would you fight for her?"

"I like strong women. I dislike seeing them fail. And I don't lose."

Lillith scented the air, she considered. She turned her head and grinned, a flash of teeth. "Chris Redfield, you are an enigma. You have women fighting to be your mate. Which will you choose? The girl who bleeds or the girl who leads? What a choice you face. If I could turn you? I would. You inspire loyalty amongst those who seek your attention. It is a powerful thing in a pack."

He said nothing, watching her.

Ada called now, loudly, "MIRA! Ask for a champion! Ask!"

On the ground, Mira was in a growing pool of blood. She lifted her head and Adina was reknitting across the room. It wouldn't be long before she was whole again and ready to fight. She had so little time.

Her hand came up and touched her chest. She was bad. It was bad. She could feel the bone inside the skin. She tried to get to her feet and slipped in the blood.

Chris shifted in his chair. Jill looked at his face.

No. Not just friendship there. Interesting.

Mira rose, bleeding, pale. She picked up the sword and it slipped in her bloody grasp. Leon shook his head. "MIRA! ASK FOR A CHAMPION!"

Carlos added his two cents, "Don't be a dumbass, Mira! ASK!"

Chris spoke, finally, "What do you want, Lillith? What do you want? Let me go out there."

"No. You cannot champion for her. I cannot risk you. And you will not fight."

He blinked, "What?"

"You must choose a champion in your stead, Chris Redfield. I will not allow you to fight. I cannot turn you if you lose and I cannot kill you. I need you. You do not fight."

"Are you fucking kidding me? You want me to pick someone to fight for me?"

It would have been hilarious if it wasn't the scariest moment of their lives happening. Chris Redfield wasn't allowed to fight. He had to sit by and let someone do it for him. What a moment.

Adina was getting to her feet now. She howled and the room howled with her.

Leon said, "I will fight for her."

He started to rise and Lillith tugged him back to his seat. "She has to ask. It has to come out of her mouth."

"She won't."

"Then she'll die."

Ada turned to Chris. "Tell her to ask. Now. Or she dies here in her own stubborn blood."

Adina was moving across the pit. Chris rose and shouted, loud enough to startle the room to silence, "MIRA! ASK FOR HELP OR I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!"

Mira slipped to one knee and swayed. She finally whispered it, so very softly, "I'm a fucking Bonnie Tyler song…I need a hero."

Lillith called, "Whom do you choose to die in your stead?"

Mira went to all fours on the ground and said quietly, "Ada Wong."

She fell to her face in the blood.

Adina was ten steps away and running. Ada leapt over the table, sliding across it. She fired off the grapple gun and hit the trigger.

She swung out like something speedy, greedy, and dark. She hit the wolfman broad side with her bare feet and sent it tumbling through the dirt. She leapt free in a dexterous roll and grabbed the sword from the pool of blood.

Adina roared skidding through the dirt. She turned back, howling.

Ada swished the sword in her hands like she knew what she was doing. Chris met her eyes. She winked and braced.

The wolf rushed her. Ada rolled at the last moment, came up with the sword in a swirling dance, and brought the sword down Adina's side in burst of blood. She fired the grapple gun, missed losing her head by three inches, and shot off to the far side of the pit.

Adina reversed, spraying blood and kicking up dust as she rushed the other way. Lillith licked her lips, enamored. What a beta female she'd make.

Adina slashed, lunging, she missed as Ada flipped back, spun low, and drove the sword into her stomach. Gasping, gnashing her teeth, Adina used her weight to drive them both to the floor in a spill of blood.

Ada feel the hot push of breath and felt the snap of those fangs inches from her face. She smiled…and fired the grapple gun. She held onto the sword with her free hand, felt those teeth rake over her shoulder, and was jerked free from the body atop her. She ripped the sword up that body as she went and the momentum of the force of the grapple gun added weight to the slash that was deadly and impressive.

Adina didn't scream. She couldn't. The sharp blade tore up through her body like a horrible cleaver. She was ripped in half from belly to shoulder. It opened her like a letter, spraying blood and breaking bone in a horrible burst of macabre confetti.

Ada shot into the ceiling and dangled. She watched the wolf reel and topple, trying to find its feet and falling to the ground to jerk and flop. She released the trigger and came down with the sword like a deadly pogo stick. Her weight and the drop drove it into that flopping body and pinned it to the ground. It was a heart blow, it was clean, and it was done.

The silence filled the room around her.

Ada jerked the blade free and spun it in her hands.

She missed across the pit in the silence and knelt beside Mira. She found her pulse. Weak and fading but alive. Ada rose, covered in blood, and faced the table.

She liked it. They were all looking at her in shock.

Well all of them but Leon Kennedy. He saluted her with his glass. She bowed with a flourish.

Lillith rose, smiling. She clapped. "You have won her freedom, Ada Wong. But she will die there before she can find it. She is mortally wounded."

"Yes. It seems that way."

Lillith considered, "And yet you fought for her."

"Sometimes I surprise myself."

Leon glanced at Jill. She grabbed his face…and she nodded.

Chris said, quietly, "Let me take her out of here. Let me take her to safety. Please. I'll come back, I swear to god. I'll come back. But she needs help. She needs help now."

Lillith shook her head, "I'm sorry. The rules are clear. She must walk out on her own power. Or she dies in her blood. There is no other choice."

Leon rose and leapt over the table. Lillith watched him, curious.

"There's one other choice."

"Oh," Her eyes flashed, bright and excited. "Oh yes. That is always an option."

Chris, figuring out too late what the plan was, shook his head. He jerked back from the table. "NO!"

Jill grabbed his hand. "It's ok."

"It's NOT. NO! Kennedy!"

He moved and Jill rose to stop him. She grabbed his big arms and held him. She met his eyes. "Look at me! Chris!"

He did, fuming.

"It's the right thing here. She dies otherwise. She dies. Do you understand? It's the only chance she's got."

Leon passed by Ada and knelt in the blood. He turned Mira's small body in his arms. She was so pale, so still. He cupped her face and said, her name, softly.

Lillith was licking her lips. "Oh…alpha. He builds his own pack. Yes."

Mira opened her eyes, bleary. "…am I dead?"

He laughed a little, scooping her bloody hair off her face. She coughed, laughed, and gasped, bowing in pain. The gesture caught her, she pumped blood fast and thick now. She'd be dead soon enough if this didn't work.

"Not yet. You won't make it…unless I turn you."

She met his eyes.

And nodded. "Do it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Do it. I don't want to die in this shit pit. Hurry."

He put out his hand for the sword and Ada said, "Where?"

Leon rolled his head a little and she pressed the sharp blade to the side of his throat. He made a sound of pain and started bleeding a smooth, wet, red line. Mira blinked at him.

He said, "Gross by necessary."

"I wanted to get my mouth on you, handsome. This wasn't what I was picturing."

"It's never usually as good as the fantasy huh?"

"Your lips, god's ears," He lifted her and she put her mouth against his neck.

Carlos said, quietly, "Gross. I think I'd rather die."

Lillith looked excited. Jill watched them and it had to be the virus in her that was making her excited too. All that blood, it was making her hot under her skin. She rubbed her fingers together and imagined how hot it would feel to put her face in it.

Jesus.

Lillith said, "The change is always messy. It is always sexual. Watch and see what it means to be alpha, Fenrir. Watch them. Watch him turn her."

"Yes, my Queen."

Carlos said again, "Gross. Jesus."

Mira let go of his skin with a pop and a gasp. Leon licked the wounds on her chest. She shivered with it.

"And I wanted your face in my tits once too, handsome. Not quite the fantasy is it?"

He laughed again, lifting his bloody face to her. "Is it ever?"

"I would say no." She watched his face while the light died in the corners of her eyes. Maybe it wasn't going to work, she thought, she still felt like she was about to pass into the light here. He was looking at her bloody chest like she was a piece of filet mignon. It might have bothered her but she was mostly dead anyway and she liked having Leon Kennedy look at her like that anyway. So she could think of worse things than dying there in his arms.

She lifted a little and suckled at his bloody neck again. He shivered. Mira laughed, shaking like she had hypothermia now. "Oh yeah baby. That's better."

Leon laughed and she leaned back, grabbed his ears, and kissed him. It wasn't friendly. It was…not. It was something not friendly. She put her tongue in his mouth and it was definitely not friendly. She gave him the taste of his own blood and it shot like a hand down into his pants to excite him. The blood sharing was all the virus, all the wolf, and all part of the deal he figured.

And then? Well, then she died.

She gasped, bowing, and died in his arms.

Lillith whispered, excited, "Watch. WATCH."

Leon cupped her face, shaking her a little. But her body was utterly limp, lifeless. Dead. Ada looked down at him. She shook her head and turned away.

Boneless, Mira laid in his arms and didn't do anything but look as dead as any body he'd ever seen. He glanced back to the table. Jill was shaking her head.

Leon whispered it, softly, "I'm so fucking sorry. I drug you into this mess. I'm so sorry."

Her body shook, shook, bowed and she screamed. She screamed and bucked and jerked in his arms.

Mira opened her eyes and they were red and hungry. She whispered back, "I forgive you." She reared up and sunk her teeth in his neck.

He gasped and she drove him to the ground beneath her. She didn't let up. She drove those tiny teeth into his throat and the pain of it ripped a shout from him.

Ada grabbed her by the hair and jerked. She let go and Ada flung her away.

Mira sprang back from the throw and bounced off the wall like a cracked out Tigger. She laughed, spinning along the ground. She stalked across the pit. Ada eyed her, the sword raised.

Mira stopped, laughing. "Don't worry, Wong. I'm not gonna hurt anyone. Scout's honor."

She put her hand down pulled Leon up from the ground. Her eyes flashed, red and scary, but somehow still her. "I think that was best orgasm I've ever had. Thanks, handsome. I owe you."

"You're ok?"

"Better than. I'm awesome sauce. I could throw you down and show you how awesome but I think Jill would kick my ass into next week if I tried." She eyed him, considering. "Trying to decide if it's worth it anyway."

He laughed and shook his head.

Lillith rose from the table, thrilled. Mira came back toward it with Leon and Ada in tow. She eyed Chris and grinned.

Lillith said, happily, "Yes. Perfect! Yes. Go. Bathe. Eat. The next battle will be soon."

She turned her eyes to Carlos, "Or you may choose to submit now. Submit to the change and join the pack. Or fight."

Mira said, "My champion won. I'm free right?"

Lillith shook her head, laughing. "No. You are pack now. You are no longer free. Shall I show you?"

She used that power. She flung it out. Mira went to her knees from it. Jill didn't fall down but she had to sit down. Fenrir bowed down into the earth with it. She closed it around them until they made sounds of pain and distress.

But Leon didn't.

He stood in the face of that burning, pulsing, feverish storm and didn't move. Lillith made a sound of delight. "You are turning. You are turning quickly."

Jill lifted her eyes to him. Turning Mira had cost him. The gray in his hair was a full streak now. It went from one end to the other. His eyes had bled red at the corners.

"It won't be long, Leon Kennedy. Will you kill your friends when you turn?"

Lillith laughed and turned away from his silence. "Go. Bathe. Clean yourselves." She glanced at Carlos. "Decide. You have one hour."

She glanced at Fenrir. "Offer them guest rooms. Post guards outside their rooms. Do not fail me."

"Never, my Queen."

Lillith turned, "Bring the newest wolf to me. I have need of her."

Mira was dragged behind her as she left the battleground. If they couldn't get the suppression into her, she was gone. They wouldn't get her back. Changed or not, she was lost to them without a cure now or a shot of the suppression compound.

Leon and Jill held each other's gaze.

She stalked away, laughing. They were taken to better chambers. They were offered clothing. It was a step up from being forced into filthy cells and scared stupid.

They poked Carlos into his own room. The put Grace in with Jill and Leon. They shoved Chris and Ada into their own room.

Chris paced the room. It was plush and somehow still spartan. The bed was done in red and more red. The walls were draped in red. It was like being inside of a blood bubble.

Ada watched him, curious. But she peeled off the bloody the shirt and strode naked into the bathroom to shower. There was only so much shit she was willing to handle. She handled all shit better clean.

He was still pacing when she emerged, wrapped in a towel.

She studied him, "Are you worried for her?"

He met her eyes and Ada sighed. "You can do nothing for her now. You can, however, go wash away the stench of death and decay that lingers around you like nasty cologne. Leon gave her a stall. That's it. She won't be Mira when you see her again. So forget her. Remember why you're here. Forget the girl and remember why you came here."

Chris gave her a filthy look and disappeared into the shower.

Ada slipped on the little red dress they'd left out for her. In honesty, the dress suited her. It was strappy and soft and would move well if she needed to fight. She could have had worse given to her.

He came out of the bathroom naked. It was still the best show she'd seen in a long time. The beard was something added to all those muscles. He jerked on the shirt and sweatpants laid out for him.

Ada laughed a little. "One of us got the better outfit, clearly."

"Who cares? It's clothes. I wouldn't give a fuck if it was rags. It doesn't matter. We need to get out of here. Now. Tell me you know a way to do that."

Ada studied him. "We have no hope of doing that. We are trapped here. We can't do anything yet. I saved her as best as I could. Why are you so angry?"

Chris paced, a caged tiger. He speared his hands through his shaggy hair. She watched him, curious.

"Was she your lover?"

He said nothing.

"She was. Interesting. Will you mourn her if she dies?"

Again, nothing.

"She wasn't good enough, Chris. It's that simple. I tried to convince her of that before she chose to fight. She wouldn't listen."

"Good for you, Ada! You want an award? I don't think they make an I-told-you-so award. But I can find out for you if that makes it feel better to be right."

Ada considered him as he paced. "You can't do anything for anyone now. Let it go."

"Fuck." He sat down on the bed, rubbing his face. "I'm going to get them all killed. They're going to kill them one at a time. Mira might as well be dead. She's a fucking monster now. Kennedy, Jill….they'll turn soon enough. Fuck!"

He grabbed is hair and yanked. "Fuck, what have I done? I can't even FIGHT here! What the fuck have I done? I've led my men into battle again. And I've gotten them all killed! A legend right? A fucking joke. I get my men killed. It's what I do."

Ada studied him, "You didn't lead them here. They followed Leon. He led them to death. Not you."

And now Chris laughed, harshly, "Right. It's his fault. Let's blame him instead. Are you kidding? He came here to find me. I'm what they want. Both sides. They are all going to go down in flames fighting over me. Fuck. Fuck fuck FUCK!"

He knocked over the tray of food placed so prettily on the cart beside the bed. He kicked over the cart and threw himself onto his back on the bed. "That bitch won't even let me fight! I get to sit here and watch them bleed, watch them die, and it's all my fucking fault! Christ!"

"You aren't to blame here. What is it with you heroes and taking the blame for the world? Is it the love of self flagellation? Do you just enjoy blaming yourselves? It's something." Ada shifted and moved toward the bed.

"How do I fix it? How do I get them out of here? How soon until the cavalry rides in? How many more people will get killed trying to save my worthless ass? FUCK! What am I supposed to d—"

She slipped on top of him. She straddled him and put her hand over his mouth. He watched her, silent.

"Shut up. No more. You can't do anything for them. Not now. Think and stop being a fool. What can you do? You can plan. You know now that she won't let you fight. So this time? This time, Chris Redfield, you don't fight. You plan. How can we get to her? If we kill the bitch, the pack will scatter. How do we kill her?"

He scanned her face.

She said, quietly, "There are things you can control. There are things you can't. You can't stop the girl who died in there and rose again as something else. You can't stop if Leon and Jill turn. You can't stop that. But Lillith? You can stop her. You just need to stop bleeding to death inside from guilt and THINK. Guilt won't save anyone. But planning might."

He sat up. She removed her hand but stay sitting on him.

"You promised to work with me, Chris Redfield. Stop panicking and work with me."

"You often straddle guys you work with?"

"When the mood strikes." She studied his face. And she touched the beard on his face to see if it was soft. It was.

"You hitting on me?"

Ada smiled, amused with him. "Possibly. I find you attractive, clearly. If a bit hairier than I'd like."

Chris laughed now, a little, "Men have body hair. Most of us anyway. You prefer the skinny hairless type like Leon Kennedy?"

"I'm not drawn to a type at all. It's case by case. How do we stop Lillith?"

"I'm open to suggestions."

"We need to know her weakness. I don't know if I can take her in a fight. But I'd love to try. If we can't get her to fight, maybe we can get to her another way."

"How?"

"Could you seduce her?"

Chris considered it. "I don't think I'm her type. Unless she's looking for a side of beef, than maybe."

"I'm fairly sure that is her loss. Although I imagine you taste as good as you look."

Ada studied him. He met her eyes. A long moment passed. He grinned a little, "Definitely hitting on me, Ada Wong."

"It would seem I am. A little. I do tend to flirt when it suits me." Ada shifted on his lap, "But we both know who her type is."

"Yeah. Fucking Leon."

"Yes. How to use that to our advantage?"

"Maybe we can smear poison on his dick and he can fuck her to death."

Ada laughed, she laughed, and shook her head. "Oh, what an image!" She laughed and it rolled her body against his where she straddled him.

It was the first time in months that he thought of something besides revenge. And it reminded him that he was still in there under the heavy throb of regret. He reacted to the urge of it. He knew how to clear out the cobwebs and get down to planning. He made a sound, almost a grunt, and uttered, "Fuck it."

He leaned up and grabbed the back of her neck. She made a sound and he rolled, throwing her beneath him on the bed. He was fast, he was nearly impossibly fast, his mouth was on her through the dress and his hands were under it. She might have done a lot of things but the urge of it shocked her and maddened.

He pushed the dress up around her hips, found her bare beneath it, and thrilled them both by rubbing the heel of his hand against the moist heat of her. Seldom one to deny the moment, Ada went with it instead, shivering and quivering for him.

She watched his face, bowing and gasping as he filled her full of his fingers beneath the little dress. A brute he might be, she thought desperately, but his powerhouse demeanor translated well to his ability to drive one insane as well. He didn't give her a chance to do anything but crest, bucking against that thrusting hand.

It was a direct assault, lethal and nearly frenzied. He fired that need into her and stole her breath. She hit the wall of the orgasm and he dragged her up it, thrusting and fucking her body with his hand like some kind of machine.

She came, wet and hot, gasping. Yeah, he thought, this was what he needed. Clear the pipes. Clear the head. A good fucking made the world go around. And he wasn't the type of man who liked to operate without his cylinders firing at full speed.

He jerked down the front of her dress. His teeth closed over her sucked one of her breasts into his mouth as far as he could. Brutal, she thought, he was all brutal touch and demand. He didn't let the body rest, he shoved it over the cliff while it was still bucking and screaming from the first round.

She might have told him to stop or something. But he was all whirlwind and want. He didn't even pause, he didn't brake. He didn't even seem to need to. He drove back her knees, jerked down his pants, and she might have said, "Stop." But it appeared Chris Redfield wasn't a man given to the notion of intimacy or gentleness or stop. He was just a man who liked to fight, who liked to fuck, and who liked to do both fast and hard. She started to say wait and it was lost beneath the hammer of his body.

He plowed into her body so hard it drove a cry from her mouth that he caught with his. He gave her his tongue for it. Generally, a woman given to a lighter, more delicate touch from her lovers, she was tossed screaming into the abyss of the roughest ride she'd ever been on. He didn't coax, didn't tempt, he just took. He used her like he'd paid her to do it.

It might have been insulting if it hadn't been so ungodly hot. And it worked like a charm. It cleared the cobwebs away, definitely. They raced together toward the edge as he hammered her so hard into the bed she was pretty sure she was dying or dead or didn't give a fuck anymore.

She came, bucking and jumping, and trying to keep from screaming. But he took her scream into his mouth and rode her through her release. With a final thrust that tried to split her in half, he jerked free of her body and spilled wet and sticky across her belly.

He rolled away, panting, staring at the ceiling. She lay there, splay legged and gasping. Lord, she thought desperately, that was the most animalistic sex she'd ever had. She was so used to men wooing and charming her. There was no charm here. He was as tactless as they came, offering her nothing but the heavy pounding of a man without any finesse. And yet she she'd come twice and was still shivering.

So, there were benefits to the brutality of it.

Low, gruff, he said, "Shit. Thanks. I needed that. I hurt you?"

Ada laughed a little, amused, "I'm not even sure how to answer that question."

"Yeah I have all the delicacy of a fucking punch to the face. But it gets the job done." He rolled and moved to the bathroom. He wiped away the stickiness of her belly with a washcloth. Which…was polite at least.

She was still shell shocked on the bed. His jackhammer fucking excited her. It was interesting and contradictory to her nature to enjoy it. But one often craved that which was not often to their taste. There was no harm in indulging as long as the job still got done.

He halted, watching her face. She lifted a brow. "What?"

"I might know how to stop her."

Ada leaned up on her elbows. Her body was sore from the pounding he'd given her. But it liked it. Her mind however? It was all with him now. "How?"

He studied her face, "How good are you with virology?"

"Pretty good."

"Awesome. Let me tell you the plan. You let me know if it'll work."

"I'm all ears."

He watched her for a long moment. "You're something. Not sure it's ears though. But it's something."

She studied him and her body gave her an aftershock to remind her of what he'd done to her. Lord. She shivered. "No more of that, Chris Redfield. You want to die here?"

"Not particularly."

"Then start talking."


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN: A WOLF IN THE HEN HOUSE

BSAA HEADQUARTERS

Quint Cetchum was not a man generally given to running. He wasn't much good at it, honestly. He was skinny and sort of awkward. His only real power was the brain behind an adorable, if somewhat mishmash set of features. It was always, always, always working. Like a machine, it processed at speeds that would make an ordinary person cross their eyes and fall over.

So when he burst into Rebecca Chambers bedroom at 2 am, she knew it wasn't to try to hit on her. Contrary to popular belief, Quint was never the type to hit on most girls. Mira, god yes, and occasionally Jill but he usually was a complete gentleman. He threw open the door to her room and shouted, "I might have the answer!"

Rebecca, woken from an intense dream involving Leon Kennedy, Chris Redfield and being a Rebecca sandwich, came awake sputtering. "Eh? Wha?"

"I think I might know how to fight them!"

"Right…we need Chris!"

"Well that would help for the vaccine…but really? It's been right in front of us this WHOLE TIME."

"….I'm all ears."

"DUH! Steven King wrote a whole fucking book about it!"

"…IT?" Rebecca rubbed her eyes as she came more awake.

Quint looked at her drolly, "….seriously? How much Steven King have you ever really read?"

"Clearly not enough."

"SILVER BULLETS."

She met his eyes in the semi-darkness. "How does that help Leon? And Jill if she's infected now?"

"Because we get the bullets, we get the vaccine…and I mix the two together."

"….you want to SHOOT Leon Kennedy with a prototype silver bullet infused with a vaccine?"

"….yep. It didn't sound so dumb when I thought of it."

"It will KILL him."

"Maybe. But what if he's already gone at that point? What if he's turned completely? What would we really have to lose?" Quint shrugged a little.

"Let's hope to GOD it doesn't come to that. We've got four hours before we ride to the rescue down there. Let's hope it doesn't come to anything remotely like that."

"What if we can get some silver bullets down there to them?"

Rebecca considered this. She paced now, thinking. "How would we? How?"

"I don't know."

"Go. Go make as many as we can. As fast as we can. Maybe we can't get it to them…but we can sure as hell use them when it's time to ride to the rescue."

"…yeah. YEAH. Fuck yeah. I'm on it!"

And he ran off to try to, maybe just once, be the hero for the change.

Rebecca was just praying that it wasn't too late for all of them.

….

Antarctica: The Den of the Wolf

They moved toward the pits. The time had come for Carlos to take his turn in combat. Jill, wearing a little red dress that trailed along the floor as she walked, was trying hard not to glance at Leon as he moved. They were, apparently, all in red which was Lillith's favorite color. They'd put her in smooth, soft, tight and feminine. They'd put him in a blood red long sleeved shirt that looked silky, felt sexy, and worked like a charm beneath his combat vest. Red was his color these days it seemed.

She took his hand and held it, linking fingers as they walked. He glanced at her and she felt the roll of panic in her guts. His hair was almost entirely white now. How long? Her mind screamed. How long was left?

She said, quietly, "You're starting to look like Dante from Devil May Cry."

And he laughed. He laughed. And it felt good. "How does it work on me?"

"Looks better on Dante. But you can pull it off."

He drew her hand to his mouth and kissed it. His eyes were half red through the pupil. She was going to lose him. She was going to lose him to this thing. If they didn't find something to save them and soon.

She stopped him in the hallway and turned him to face her, "You need a shot."

He shook his head and cupped her face. His tactical glove was scratchy on her face. "I can't. Carlos will pick me to fight for him. I can't be limited. You know that."

"Let me fight for him. I can take the change a little more. I don't think you can, Leon. I don't think you've got much left in you."

"Jill…Jill…" He soothed her and drew her up to kiss her. It was a good kiss, smooth and soft and gentle. "Don't underestimate me. I can do this."

"It's not you. I've seen you. I know what you can do. Leon…they can't get you. They can't. We'll lose if you turn. I can't kill you. Please. Don't make me kill you. I don't think I'd survive it."

Touched, he scanned her face and skimmed his thumbs over her cheeks. "Today is not the day I die, Jill Valentine. You have to trust me."

"I trust you. I don't trust the thing inside of you."

Her eyes were bleeding red in places now. The fear was getting to her. It was overwhelming her ability to think, to control, and to react calmly. Leon kissed her and the thing inside of him scented her. It scented mate and spilled into his blood like fire. He nuzzled her mouth open and spilled his tongue inside it.

She made a sound and looped her arms around him to hold on. He picked her up against his body and stole her breath. And then he set her down on the floor and held her face. "Still me. Still you. And I won't risk you. Not for Carlos. Not for Chris. Not for anyone."

"Leon…" She grabbed his wrists, "That's the wrong answer."

"It's the only one I have. It can't be anything else but that. Right now? Right here? I don't care about anything but you."

She held his gaze, scanning his face, "That's the virus talking, not you. That's not you."

"But it kinda is. It is. I love you, Jill."

Oh it felt good and bad and wonderful and terrible to hear it. She moved into his body and held him. He turned his cheek against her hair. "I love you," He repeated, "Where this ends? I don't know. But it doesn't, ever, end with me stepping aside so you can die for me. Nope. I'm not made that way."

"You think I am? You think I can just sit there while you die, while you turn, while they put you down? If you die, Leon, fighting for Carlos? They will rape me, they will kill me…and what then? They'll kill Chris, take his blood and make themselves faster, stronger, meaner and better. They've already got Mira. What do you think happens if they get you?"

It was the wrong thing to say. Speaking about her dying, about the raping and the killing, it was the wrong thing to say. It didn't calm him, didn't force him to see reason, it fired the rage in his blood like nothing she'd ever seen. He was Leon Kennedy, yes, but he wasn't. Not entirely. Not anymore. He was more and less and everything. And he was going to go out there and die. And he was going to leave her to fight this battle alone.

"Don't," She whispered it now and she felt it, she felt the moment the fear of it finally cracked through the wall of her resolve, "Don't. Please. Anyone else. Let Ada fight. Let me fight. Not you. Please."

In the whole of his life, he'd never had a woman beg him not to fight. He'd never met anyone like her. She was all passion and fire and humor. She was loyalty and heart and hope. She was hell on wheels with a knife and the fastest thing he'd ever seen with acrobatics. Her face, her body, her heart…they rolled inside of him in ways that left him breathless. The love she offered him was heady and filled with promise. How did he protect her? How did he survive to take it and find out what came next?

He knelt now and she took his face, "Jill…are you asking me to stand aside? Are you saying you want me…and Chris Redfield to sit at the table and let our women fight for us?"

She laughed a little and a big fat tear trembled on those long, long lashes of hers that he loved. "Yeah. Yeah I am. How does that feel, Kennedy? I'm asking you to let me protect you."

"That feels like the best gift anyone, anywhere, has ever offered me. Jill…you came out of the water that day and took a piece of me with you."

"I thought the same." She held his face as he knelt there. The white hair, the red eyes, the whole of it had never mattered, it couldn't matter. He'd come to that school, come to this pit, and lived with this infection to help her, to help Chris, to help stop something that would kill and destroy and infect. He was such a good man, such a warrior, so full of altruïsm and love. "I need you to stay with me, Leon. I need to leave this pit with you or die there beside you in the dirt. I can't do it any other way. If you go out there and fight? You'll push yourself closer to the change. You'll push yourself closer to the edge. Let me do this. And trust me to know I'll win."

He shook his head, laughing a little. She looked at him, on one knee in front of her, looking up into her face. He stole her breath, stole her ability to do anything but love him. She wouldn't let him die. If she had to tear this whole place down around them in a blood bath and a blaze of glory and death, she'd get them both out of this. She said, "Let me be the hero for once, Leon Kennedy. And you? You be the one who waits to be saved."

He lifted his heads and hit the release on his vest. She watched him, wide eyed. He took it off in the long hallway and slipped it on her. She knew it was the moment he relented. He would let her fight for him. And he, officially, had all of her now.

He fitted it to her slender frame and tightened the latches. He said, quietly, "You have the Xenodysmorphia. The good news? It won't work on me. The bad news? It may work on you."

"I need the sword."

"Ada has it. She'll give it to you."

"Good."

He grabbed her by the vest and held her. "If it goes bad out there, I will come into that pit. I don't give a fuck about the rules here. Do you understand me? You said you'd die beside me, I won't let that happen. I will not, ever, let that happen."

"You have to get Chris out. Get him out. Or all of this? It was for nothing. Promise me."

He shook his head. She fisted his shirt and shook him a little. "Promise me, Leon. I mean it. He's got the answers inside of him. This can't all have been for nothing. Get him out. You can't put me first. You can't. There has to be enough of Leon Kennedy to know what really matters here. It's not me. It's hope. You have to get him out."

"You're the only fucking hope I've got," He drug her against him and kissed her. She melted into him and they both hung on for a long moment, "….I promise."

She made a sound and he held her against his body while her feet dangled.

Ada made a sound at the far end of the hallway, watching them. "He loves her."

Chris was studying them as well. He watched their faces, watched their bodies. He watched that coward strap the vest on her. "He's a coward."

He turned away as Carlos came down the hallway. Ada turned to look at his profile. She studied his face. A hard man to interpret, he was completely shut down now. "Why a coward?"

"He's going to let her fight."

"So?"

"He's a coward."

"No." Chris faced her now. "He's a lot of things. Never a coward. He's almost done, Chris. Look at him. He's turning. He's almost gone. She's not. Are you doubting her ability to win?"

"Never. EVER."

"He's making a decision to let her protect him. She can. He can't. Not without losing. It's wise. Not cowardly. Not every answer ends with you at the front of the line punching in faces, Chris Redfield. Stop thinking with your pride and think with your brain." She turned to move down the hallway.

How was Ada Wong always shaming him? It was amazing. She always made him feel about two feet tall. He turned to wait for Carlos.

The other man was pale and nervous. Chris studied his face. "You ready?"

"Hell no. I can't win, Cap. I can't. You know it, I know it. They let me take a gun? Maybe I have a chance. You think they'll give me my gun?"

"No. I don't think they will."

"You want to fight for me?"

Chris stuck his hand out and Carlos grabbed it. They held forearms, tight and hard. And they held eyes. It was a dude hug. "I would. You know that. Any minute, any second. You and I don't always see eye to eye, Carlos, but I hired you. I'd get in that fucking ring for any one of you."

"I know you would, Captain. Thank you. But I think….I think Mira would laugh at me if I let you. I think I'd never live it down."

"Fuck pride here Carlos, come out alive."

"I'm sorry, sir. I just…can't let the other guys laugh at me. I'm a guy. It's not ok."

"Carlos…" Chris shook his head. In the doorway, Ada watched the guilt edge around his face. He was such an interesting man. His devotion to his team was unparalleled. He was loyal to a fault. It was interesting to know she liked that about him. "Don't be fucking stupid here. Mira was. And now she's…"

"Yeah. Yeah she is. Excuse me for a minute, sir." Carlos moved to Leon and Jill, "Here's where we stand. I can't let you fight for me."

"Carlos!" Jill grabbed his arms. "I can do it. You know I can."

"Sorry, Valentine, you can't reason with ego. And mines telling me I have to do this." He turned his eyes to Leon, "Don't turn me."

Jill shook him, "Carlos! Stop being stupid."

He held Leon's gaze, "Don't turn me. I mean it. If I die, you let me go. If we're fucked here, let it be done…I don't want to be one of those things. Ever. I mean it."

Leon nodded and Jill said, again, "Stop it. Both of you. I mean it. Carlos, stop being a fucking dumb ass. Of course he'll turn you."

Leon answered, softly, "No I won't."

"Leon!"

But the two men were holding eyes above her head. He said, quietly, "It's what you want?"

"It is."

"I'll honor it."

"Thank you."

Jill looked between them, exasperated. And she finally shoved them both in the chest. They looked at her in surprise like they'd forgotten she was there. "You fucking men and your egos. Who dies for pride!?"

"Men." Carlos answered and laughed a little. "It's what we do."

Jill stormed away. Leon and Carlos shook hands. Carlos said, "You get that I kinda…" He trailed off and Leon nodded a little.

"I can tell you love her."

"Wolf powers?"

"Nope. Man powers. I knew it the moment I saw you look at her."

Carlos chuckled a little, "Sorry, amigo. Can't help it."

"No judgement here. She's worth it."

"You bet she is. How she looks at you though? That's something."

"Last chance to change your mind, Carlos."

They held eyes. Carlos shrugged and moved passed him, slapping him once on the shoulder. "Can't do it, amigo. This is my only real moment of bravery."

"You protected her in Raccoon City."

"I did." They held eyes again. "My other moment of bravery."

"You seem to have them a lot for her."

"Yep. Sucks to be me."

"I'm glad she has you around."

"Thanks. A helluva compliment."

"Good luck out there."

Carlos breathed and went through the door. Jill was moving toward him again. She shoved him in the chest. Leon stumbled a little and tilted his head at her. "Interesting reaction."

"You turn him. I don't care what he wants. You turn him."

"No."

She pushed him again. "Leon, I swear to god!"

"I promised, Jill. It's not what he wants."

"We'll get the fucking cure for it! Who cares what he wants?"

"….I do. I would have declined too."

She met his eyes now, holding them. The sound of the horn went off in the pits. It was time to get to the table and watch Carlos fight for his life. She kept on standing there looking at him.

"You turn him."

"No."

"Do it, Leon. I swear to god. Or I will."

She spun back to go to the pit and he grabbed her, threw her against the wall and pinned her there. She gasped and struggled a little. She pushed at him and his blood fired with it.

"Stop fighting me, Jill," his voice was very quiet, very calm but edged with something that made her be still. "And listen to me. Carefully. He doesn't want it. You won't do it. I won't let you. And fighting me right now? It's making me excited. So stop. Please."

"…ok. Ok. I'm sorry." She collapsed against him and he kissed her forehead. "Shit shit shit."

The horn sounded again. Ada and Chris were standing there, watching them. Leon let go of her and turned to move into the pit. Ada crossed by her and said nothing.

Always a cold fish, that one, Jill mused. Chris moved up beside her. She grabbed his hand, he pulled her against him. It was a good hug, tight and hard. She buried her face against his chest.

"How does this end?"

He glanced down at her carefully braided hair. "I don't know."

Her eyes turned up to him. "Take a guess."

"You and me escaping."

"And Leon?"

He held her eyes with his. The cool blue of his met the bleeding red and blue of hers. Purple, he thought, they were blending purple in her beautiful face. God. "Chris? Does Leon make it out?"

"I think you know the answer to that, Jill. Or you wouldn't be asking me."

"…fuck." She wrapped her arms around his waist. He put his face against her neck.

"How did you end up wrapped up inside of him?"

"Look at him, you big idiot. He's everything. How could I not?"

"….why do you think I kinda made sure you never ran into him all these years?"

Her head came up again and met his look. It was such a fucking great face. That beard, those blue eyes like sea water. The strong jaw, the determined and steely demeanor. He was big and broad and brave to the point of being a hero. He was the best thing in her life…almost. The best thing in her life was trying to look like Dante from Devil May Cry.

"Have you been keeping me from Leon Kennedy?"

"Indirectly. First time I met him, he made some fucking joke. It was your kind of joke. Claire giggled. CLAIRE. And she looked at me and said Can't you just see him and Jill together?" His impersonation of Claire was squeaking and high pitched. It was adorable. "I could. And I didn't like it at all."

"Jealous were you?"

His face was amused now. No. No jealousy there. It had never been like that. It might have been once if they'd pushed at it. But they were the two best friends that any one could have. They were bonded and full of each other. It's what years of friendship looked like. And there was no jealousy here.

"No. But I knew what he would do to you. He's all kinds of your type, doll face. And he's like smoke. He just slips right through the fingers of everyone around him. You deserve someone who sticks around to love you."

Touched, she studied his heavily bearded face. He generally had a five o'clock shadow at eight a.m. This kind of a beard looked like months worth of growth though. She touched the beard and found it soft and smooth. "He's amazing. He is wonderful. He is quirky and silly and dynamite in bed. He's everything, Chris. And he's not going anywhere. Help me. Help me keep him."

Chris kissed her now. It was a good kiss. The beard was smooth and soft on her face. She held him close. "I'll do what I can, Jilly Bean."

The horn sounded once more. She looked at his face. "I'm not ready."

"Are we ever?"

They went into the pit.

Lillith was at the table in a crimson gown that showed her taut little body to perfect advantage. She patted the seat beside her that wasn't occupied by Leon and Chris sat down. She put her hand on his thigh and held Leon's hand in her other one.

Bitch, Jill thought, I'm going to enjoy the hell out of ending you. She claimed the seat on Leon's other side. They looped fingers and held them.

Grace was sitting on her haunches at the side of the table. Jill petted her, seeking comfort. Grace shifted a little closer and Jill was touched by it.

Lillith said, "Are you curious who is fighting your man, Chris Redfield?"

"Naturally." She was rubbing lazy circles on the inside of his thigh. She kept licking his neck. He let her. He didn't give a shit about any of that anyway. Stuffing Ada Wong like a Christmas turkey had taken the edge off his body for the first time in months. She was wasting her time playing at his body. She could loop her hand around his dick and start pulling and it wouldn't matter.

She didn't have any weapons to use against him.

But she did.

She really did.

Because the person crossing the pit toward Carlos wasn't another man. It was a woman.

It was Mira.

Jill leapt to her feet. "NO!"

Leon kept holding her hand. She turned her face to him. She saw nothing there to comfort her. She turned to Lillith, "No! You can't do this!"

"Can't I? She is mine now. Your mate gave her to me."

Chris pushed away from the table and Lillith moved. It was almost scary how fast she could move. She swept his feet from him and put him on his back on the table. She leapt atop him and straddled him, pushing him down. "You won't save her. You won't save him. You will NOT fight."

"You can't fucking stop me, you carnivorous cunt. I will never stop."

Lillith tilted her head, studying his face. She tilted it back again. "What do you do here? You were so very compliant before. What do you do here? You wish to anger me…why?"

She leapt off him and jerked him to his feet. She threw him into his seat and sat on his lap. She curled her arm over his neck. "Watch. Argue? Resist? Attempt to fight? I will have them both killed. And your bitch beside you next."

Ada snorted a little. "A true leader doesn't need fear to bring her troops to heel, Lillith. Eventually a person who rules through fear runs out of power. What will you have when the fear is gone? A man like this…he doesn't stop for fear. He will push through that fear and destroy you. You are a fool to challenge that."

It was the right and wrong thing to say. It was loyal to Chris, which surprised the shit out of Jill and apparently him too based on his face. But it was the wrong thing to say. It made Ada the target. But maybe that he been her plan all along. Lillith turned her head. "I have changed my mind on who will fight." She raised her voice, "Release the man to the table. His time is not now…"

And her smile was wolfish and excited, "Ada Wong. Your fight for freedom is now. Win and I will let you go. Lose? And you are mine."

Ada rose and Chris grabbed her hand. "Ada…don't."

"I will give her peace. I'm sorry, Chris. I am." She leapt into the pit. Carlos was dumped into her chair with a grunt.

Lillith was rubbing at him. Bored with the shirt, she ripped it down the middle so she could rub his chest. It was fine, it was, he didn't care about that. He was too busy trying to move her around to see what was happening in the pit.

Carlos said, quietly, "I'm sorry, Cap."

"Don't." Chris shook his head, "Not your fault."

Lillith bit down on his left pectoral hard enough to pull a grunt from him. She left a rosy imprint of her teeth. She shivered. "I want to taste that blood of yours. But I hesitate. Will it be the best thing I've ever tasted…or the worst? And if I were to taste it, love it, and want more…would blooding you kill you?" She jerked his face to hers.

Chris gave her bored and tired eyes.

"Fool. You choose to ignore me?"

"What do you want, Lillith? Tell me. And stop this. If both of those women die out there…will that be enough? Will it?"

Lillith considered him. She traced his beard and licked his nose. He watched her, dead pan. "The fact that you are immune is a great loss, Chris Redfield. You bargain for your pack now? You are alpha. And yet you are trapped in your mortal shell. Would you give yourself into my hands to save your pack?"

No hesitation, no anything. He just said, "Yes."

Jill yelled, "Chris!"

He shook his head, "Take all the blood you want. Take it. And if you can find a way to over come it, turn me. I'll be your mate. I'll be any damn thing you want. Let them all go."

Leon laughed now. "Shut up, Redfield. You philanthropical idiot."

Lillith rolled her head, studying him. "The challenge is accepted here, Chris Redfield. But I will consider your offer. But understand this. If Leon Kennedy won't come to me and be alpha…and I can turn you, I will. To be alpha means to fight. Would you fight each other?"

Chris laughed a little now, "Wouldn't be much of a fight. My left arm is bigger around then he is."

Leon laughed again, shaking his head.

Lillith rolled her head toward him. "What I do here, I do in search of an alpha, in search of a mate. I will find one amongst you. The rest? Are not necessary to me. Remember this as you decide who is worth living for and who is worth dying for."

She flicked her eyes to Jill. "You speak of love to me. Love. I don't care about love. I seek to protect my pack and that comes with a higher cost than love. Submit and this ends. Continue to deny me? I will see you all turn or die. The choice remains yours."

Chris grabbed her face in his hands, drawing her attention. He gave her a pointed look. "I submit."

"Chris! SHUT UP!"

He ignored Jill. "I submit. Turn me. Let them go."

"You know I can't," But she was interested in his selflessness. It was greater, in one hand than Leon Kennedy's. Leon who was self-sacrificing to protect his mate. This man? He was trying to insulate his whole pack against her. "But what else can you offer me?"

"CHRIS!" Jill shouted it now, "SHUT UP! Do NOT offer her a damn thing!"

The answer was lost as Carlos said, "It's starting."

And the two in the center of the ring circled each other. Chris shifted. Oh, Jill thought hurting for him, oh. Which one? Both maybe. Either would cost him.

Mira tilted her head, studying the other woman. "You would kill me? Why?"

"What choice is there? Fight or die. That's it. I won't die here, in this shit hole, trying to spare you. That's not my style."

"So you'll kill me for what? Jealousy? He's not mine. You're welcome to him."

Ada laughed now and rolled her neck. "It has nothing to do with him or any of them. It's about me. Always has been. I'm sorry for this, I am, but you're already dead. I'm just helping you avoid turning into a monster."

"No more talk, Ada Wong."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

Mira rushed her. Ada rolled and fired off the grapple gun. It latched into a far beam and she shot off into the air. She flipped out of it and found Mira already there. The kick she took to the face sent her onto her back to skid through the dirt.

This was the problem, Ada mused, with turning a woman who'd been trained to fight. The wolves were all scientists, all geeks, all civilians. With Mira, with Jill or Leon, the game changed. They suddenly had more than brains on their side, they had warriors. It would be the beginning of the end.

She couldn't let this woman continue. It had to end. She was sorry for it. She knew it would hurt Chris and she had become fond of him. But she couldn't do it. She couldn't let her stay in the clutches of that alpha bitch. She'd use her to destroy. And it couldn't be borne.

Ada missed the boot that came at her face by inches. She rolled, spun from a crouch, and took the other woman's legs. Mira went down, rolled, and Ada caught her wrist. She rolled onto her back, stuck her feet into the other woman's belly, and tossed her up and out.

Carlos threw the sword and Ada caught it, hitting the trigger to extend the blades. Chris jerked as Lillith drew blood with her next bite. She watched it, red and rich and fragrant. It trickled down his chest.

Making a sound, Lillith rolled her face against it. She shivered, rocking on his body. He couldn't see the fighting. She had him turned away to face her. He could hear the shouting, could hear the thump of fist and skin. He could feel his pulse beating fast and hard beneath his skin.

Lillith bit him again, on his stomach. She left imprints that filled with blood. Jill leapt up and Leon shoved her back in the seat. She gave him angry eyes.

His were calm.

Lillith rolled her face again.

In the ring, Ada sent Mira skidding face down across the ground with a triple kick to the face. The small woman was laughing as she rose. She turned back, wiping the blood from her face. "You realize that this ends with us both dead, right Ada? We both die here. We ALL die here."

They traded blows. Ada hit her in the stomach, Mira slapped her in the face. They blocked, rolled, reversed. Admittedly, the smaller girl was talented, she was good. But she wasn't going to be good enough. She had no clue how to use all that beautiful strength and speed pouring through her. It wasn't enough to have her win.

Ada shook her head and flourished the sword. Mira missed losing her head by a quarter of an inch. She rolled down, spun low, and kicked Ada in the groin. The other woman staggered and Mira knocked the sword from her hands with a roaring back hand. It split Ada's mouth open. Blood flew in a fine spatter of red.

The sword spun across the dirt. Mira grabbed her throat and lifted her. Ada fired off the grapple gun from her hip. It speared into the ceiling. She hit the trigger and was ripped clear of that killing grip.

Mira screamed in frustration. Ada dangled, feeling the wet of blood on her neck. Those awful nails had bled her. She didn't think she had to worry about infection that way but anything was possible. Considering, she dangled while Mira paced on the ground beneath her.

"COME ON! COWARD!"

Ada hit the release and tumbled down. Halfway down, she fired the gun again across the pit and shot off like a dart. She released the trigger, hit the ground rolling and came up through the skid to grab the sword. Mira leapt at her and the world slowed down.

Lillith spun him around now and Chris, covered in bleeding bite marks, could do nothing but watch. Lillith said, "Watch now, you delicious thing. Watch and see."

Ada swung the sword and the air split…a second too fast. She took a bloody slice of hip with her but Mira caught her in the tackle she'd been going for anyway. She took them both to the floor in a screaming, roaring mess.

The tiny little woman ripped the larger, taller one up above her head like she weighed nothing. She shook her and threw her out. Ada hit the beam, slid down it, and fired off the gun again. She missed the slash of claws where her throat had been by a breath.

She landed in the center of the ring and Mira slapped her. Blocking the direct hit, Ada spun back and kicked her in the chest. She dropped low, caught the arm of the advancing Mira, and threw her. As Mira came out of the throw and went into a front flip, Ada grabbed the sword.

She wasted a precious moment meeting those blue eyes over the beard of the man being tortured in more than one way. And she was sorry for it. So sorry. But it changed nothing. It had to go down this way.

Mira grabbed for her and Ada dropped into a crouch. She had, it seemed, all the time in the world to drive that sword up and into the woman above her. Mira gasped, Ada twisted, and Jill was shouting now from the table. Carlos was silent. Chris and Leon were silent. There was no stopping it. The men knew that. What was it with women and holding on too long?

The sword drove into her tiny body without concern for the love given to her by the man at the table. It didn't care. It went into Mira's chest and spitted her there on it like harbinger of death that it was made to be. Ada pushed and put her on her back with the blade buried in her.

Mira coughed now and blood bubbled from her mouth. "Shit…" She laughed and it gurgled. "Shit."

Ada said, quietly, "I am sorry."

"I know that. Look…just…get him out ok? Get him the fuck…out of here."

"I will. I swear to god."

He was struggling now against the woman holding him at the table. "Mira!" He shoved Lillith and surprised everyone there at the table. "Get off me! Mira! Get up!"

Lillith struck him so hard that his mouth burst with blood but he didn't stop fighting to get away from her.

Mira laughed, "He's such…an asshole. He thinks it's that easy right? Got a fucking sword in my chest but I'll just….get back up."

She was whispering now.

Taking pity on him, Leon grabbed Lillith and held her against his body. She laughed and rolled against him, licking his face.

Chris leapt into the ring and ran. He skidded across the ground when he was close. But the blood was huge, pooling, widening. It was a heart blow and a good one. The second Ada pulled the sword out, it was over.

"Fuck…" He put his hands around the blade and pressed. "Tell me what to do.."

Touched, Mira laughed and coughed, painfully. "Jesus. They say it doesn't hurt. It fucking hurts. Liars. Red…look at me."

He rolled his eyes to her face.

"This is good. It gets her out of here. Come here." She lifted a hand to his face. He made a sound and moved down to kiss her. It was a good kiss. There was a lot of blood in it but it was a good kiss. She whispered against his mouth, wetly, "Give her your fucking blood and let her get out of here. You think I died for nothing? You think I lost? I let her win. This? This is how I save YOU…captain."

"Wait…" He felt her go. He felt her breathe out and go. He knew she was dead. He knew it. But he said, again, "Wait…Mira? Just…wait."

Ada pulled the sword free and he scooped her in against him. She was so small. Bloody and small and dead. She was dead. He felt the roll and spill of it through his skin and down his body. He rocked her a little in all the blood.

He made a sound of grief that hurt Ada to hear it. His face was…it was angry and grieving and determined all at once. He scooped a hand through Mira's bloody hair.

Ada knelt beside him. He turned and grabbed her face. He pulled her to his mouth. "I need you to take a mouthful of my fucking blood with you and get the hell out of here. Don't betray me here, Ada. Tell me I can trust you."

"You can trust me."

They locked eyes. "God help you if you're lying to me."

"I do a lot of things, Chris. But I don't lie. I promise you that."

"I let that bitch back there bleed me for you. For this. Make sure you live up to that." Ada moved in close to him and closed her mouth over his. She sucked his tongue and drew the coppery taste of his blood into her mouth until she could taste nothing but pennies and determination.

Lillith, licking all over Leon like a horny cat, said, "You have won your freedom, Ada Wong. It is a sad day for me! I have lost my newest wolf and my best candidate to replace her in one moment! But there is hope! I will have an alpha male by nightfall. One way or another."

Ada rose and Chris let her go. He turned back to the woman in his arms. He drew her small body against him and held her…just for a moment longer. She'd always told him he was the selfless idiot. It turned out…she was.

He whispered now, against her little ear, "I will make sure I burn this fucking place to the ground for you. I swear to god."

He rose with her in his arms. She was curled against his chest like she was sleeping. She didn't even weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. She'd come on to him like a man, all dirty talk and groping hands. He'd thrown her down that one night and thrilled them both with it. No regrets there. None. They'd become good friends over the filthy fucking they'd done like a dirty secret that night. She'd died to save them.

He could do no less than the same for her.

Ada moved toward the far door of the ring. The wolf there opened the door for her without a world. Jill yelled, "Really, Ada? No fucking goodbye?"

Ada paused but she didn't even glance back. She just kept walking.

Jill whispered, quietly, "Bitch."

Leon glanced at Jill and shook his head. Lillith let go of him with a shiver and moved toward Chris as he carried Mira toward them. Carlos rose and moved toward them.

Chris said, quietly to him, "She knew what she was doing. She deserved better."

They held eyes. Carlos said, "It's what we signed on for, sir. This is what we signed on for."

"Not this," Chris shook his head, "Not this. This? This shit ends now."

He handed Mira to the other man, gently. He turned to Lillith. "I submit."

Jill moved and Leon caught her again, shaking his head. "Stop it, Chris! STOP IT!"

"You wanted an alpha male? I submit. Now."

Lillith laughed and gestured with her head. Fenrir stepped up to grab him. Chris didn't bother to struggle. He watched her.

"Chris Redfield, I can't turn you. But I will seek out a way to try to. For now? I will take your blood and play with it. In one hour? We will meet here again. Think of what you offer. This is no turning back when I accept."

She spun away and moved toward the far door. Fenrir drug him away while Jill moved to intercept them. Leon stopped her again, shaking his head.

Carlos followed two wolves with Mira toward the other doors. Grace remained, watching them.

Jill put her hands in her face and shook. She made a sound of grief. "This is it? Ada Wong murders my friend and gets to go free. And they take Chris to what? WHAT? Kill him? Turn him? Both? Fuck."

She spun away when he tried to touch her. "What do we do? We're losing here. We tried to save Mira and she died anyway. Ada flew the coop like a coward. Chris offers himself up like a fucking piece of bacon. Carlos is off to bury my best friend in the BSAA besides Chris….what is happening here?!"

He touched her arm and she moved away. "Don't, Leon. Don't. I'll lose it. I'll fall apart. I'll start crying and I won't stop. How do we get out of this alive?"

And now he said, "Let me offer myself."

"No."

"Jill, listen. Let me offer myself. You all go free. Ada? She took a sample of Chris' blood with her."

Jill frozen and turned back to him. They locked eyes.

"Oh yeah. She took it. That was probably always the plan. Mira knew it, Chris knew it, Ada knew it. And I saw it from a thousand miles away. Rebecca will have his blood soon enough. They can start working on a vaccine. Lillith wants an alpha. Let me offer myself. You get out, get the vaccine, and come back down here and burn this fucking place to the ground."

Jill held his gaze. They stared at each other in the swirling air. She said, softly, "I'm afraid of what happens to you if I agree."

"I can handle myself. I'll be fine. Be quick and don't leave me to rot here."

"No. No. I won't." She shook her head and he grabbed her as she started passed him. She saw his face and shook her head again. "NO. Don't ask again."

"It's the right thing here, Jill. You know that."

"No. I will not leave you. I'm sorry. I won't do it."

"Carlos fights next. And then? It's you or me. You know that. It's you or me."

"I know that. But I can't and I won't leave you in her hands. I won't. And Chris wouldn't let me anyway. He'd die before he left anyone behind. You know that."

She shifted and looked out over the pit. It was wide and empty now but the blood there was thick and red. It smelled like death here. It smelled like copper. It smelled like failure. She looked at the place on the ground where one of her best friends in the world had died and she wanted to roll her face through the remainder of all that delicious blood.

It brought a small sob from her throat. Leon turned her into his body now and held her. She shook her head, denying, but her arms curled around him.

"How do we survive this Leon? How?"

He caught a glimpse of himself in the steel beam across from him. His eyes had blood almost completely red now. There was only one suppression shot left between them. Time was almost up. Mira was dead and Ada was gone. Chris was a prisoner while they tried to find a way to use him and turn him. There seemed to be no hope here. No help. And no way to escape it all.

What was worse than that? He felt nothing. His emptiness alarmed him. He felt sympathy, yes, but beneath that? Only this burgeoning desire to take Jill and run. Run. Run with her and leave the rest of them to rot here. He didn't care. His instincts said to protect her at all costs. Even if that cost was everyone else he'd sworn to protect. Who was he? Was he even Leon Kennedy anymore?

He waited for the answer. But there was none. Or maybe he'd always had the answer. He'd had the dreams his whole life. He knew the answer.

He looked into the red spill of his own eyes…and the darkness echoed back, shrieking.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Author's Note:
> 
> I think we're running close to the end here. Maybe. How does it end? I've been so blocked on that. I've gotten so into the mythology that I've forgotten the purpose of the story. Aha. Let's see where this little chapter takes us and find out.
> 
> Slainte'.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: SILVER BULLET

Antarctica: The Den of the Wolf

The timer on his watch roused him. He was leaning against the wall and slumbering…sort of. His eyes glanced down at the timer on the watch. It was time for another injection…but there was only one left. It was time for the cavalry to pull the trigger on their rescue.

Their time in the den was coming to an end.

The BSAA would drop a grenade into this pit and blow it sky high. They'd do their best to rescue their agents first. The fact that Chris Redfield was in this pit would halt the front assault they'd try to launch. He was the keys to the entire organization. They wouldn't kill the leader of the resistance. They would be stupid and futile and potentially fatal.

Leon shifted and his blood boiled from it. He lifted his hand and looked at it. The fingernails…were longer. Longer. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror across the room from him. His hair was entirely white. And his eyes?

Entirely red.

Jesus.

Jill roused where she lay on his thigh. Her eyes rolled to him. And the blue of them had bled red at the edges. She made a sound when she saw his face.

"Leon…"

"….I know."

"How do you feel?"

His eyes tracked her face. And he could see through the wall beside him. He could see bodies beyond the stone. He could smell the blood, hear the laughter down the hall. He could taste the hunger for her on his tongue like poison. How did he feel?

"Alive."

"Alive?"

"Oh yeah. And hot."

Jill laughed a little, scared. "You're always hot."

"Ditto, kiddo."

"Do you feel….like you?"

"Sorta. Mostly. Maybe. Hard to say. I'm not scared, Jill. Not at all. I'm ok. And even more than that? I feel good. Strong." He stroked her hair, almost absently.

"You look like Dante."

Leon laughed a little. "I feel like Dante. Maybe not as snarky or charmless. But still like a devil. Invincible." And he grinned.

Jill sat up slowly, watching him. He hated the fear on her face. He must have done something to earn it though because she was backing away from him. He shivered a little, "What? Jill? What is it?"

"….your mouth is full of fangs."

He turned his head and saw them. Yep. Fangs. Sharp little pointy fangs all through his mouth. He tried to be concerned and wasn't. He wasn't concerned about anything. He wasn't, in fact, able to feel upset at all. He tried to feel something palpable and he just felt…neutral.

Jill shifted and his eyes shifted back to her. She looked afraid. And he didn't like that. THAT he could feel. What did they call that? Empathy for his mate.

"I won't hurt you, Jill. Mate. I won't hurt you."

"Won't you? Are you even Leon Kennedy anymore?"

"…yes."

Her breath hitched a little. "That was a slow answer."

"It was. Potentially I'm still me. But not exactly."

They held eyes. She pictured him that day she'd found him on the beach in Sri Lanka. She saw his smile; the husky blue of those eyes. She pictured his laughter. She pictured their joy. She wanted to go back. Could they just go back and be there again?

"You need a suppression injection."

"Jill…" She wouldn't look at him as she started digging through their clothes on the floor for the last injection. "Jilly…."

Still nothing.

He tried again. "Jillian."

Her eyes came up to his face. She looked grief-stricken. Jesus Christ, he wasn't dead yet. Why did she keep looking at him like he was? Damn woman.

He rose from the floor and the red shirt he wore framed the pale perfection of his chest. His beautiful tan was lost now. Gone. He was pale white and ghostly. And…hairy? Something. He had more chest hair than he should. Jill made a sound of fear as he crossed to her.

She rose as well…and she had the injection.

Leon stopped, tilted his head, and grinned.

THOSE TEETH. She lifted the plunger. "Come get this."

"No."

"Leon…you need it."

"Jillian…it's wasted on me. We both know it. This is it, honey. This is the end."

"Stop it. Idiot. Shut up." She moved toward him. He caught her wrist, snake quick, and twisted her arm. They grappled and he won. Easily. He threw the plunger away and twisted her around until her back was to his front.

She struggled and he said, softly, "Stop fighting me. Stop. I like it. I need you to stop."

Jill stopped.

And he hated that it hurt him to know she was afraid of him. He closed his eyes and breathed. But his voice said, again, "This is it, Jill. This is how it has to go down. I'm not dead. I'm still me enough to know I'm beyond help here. I'm going to fight Lillith."

Jill jerked in shock. "What?"

"I'm going to fight her. If I submit, she may kill you anyway. So I'm going to fight her. I'm going to take her fucking pack from her. And you? You get out of here, you get the cavalry. You ride back in here and you burn this fucking place to the ground."

Jill shook her head. She shook it hard. She turned in his arms. And she grabbed his face. He held her wrists. His face. HIS FACE. It was still him. In those red, red, red eyes…it was still him.

"I will not leave you here. We talked about this."

"We did. But Jill? If I'm right…if I'm right killing her will transfer the power of the pack to me. Do you understand what that means?"

She held his gaze. He could see that she didn't. She hadn't made the leap yet. She didn't understand. But she would. She would.

"If you inherit the pack, you inherit the power. Without an alpha? The pack can't survive. Killing her makes me their alpha."

"….ok."

"Jill…to stop the pack, you have to kill the alpha."

She slapped his face.

Just like that.

He blinked and shivered with delight. She smacked him again, harder. He let her. He liked it. She liked it too but she hated it and hated him. And hated them both for what was happening. How had they gotten here? How did they get out alive?

"You want me to bring in the BSAA and kill you?"

She slapped him again. He caught her hand and spun her around again to pin her against his front. Jill shook with rage.

"You want me to kill you!? You want me to be the girl that KILLED LEON KENNEDY!?"

He laughed a little and licked her cheek.

"Stop it! You fucking dog. Stop it. AND LET GO OF ME!"

Leon didn't let go. He kissed her neck and made her shiver. "I won't be me by then, Jill. Chances are this is the end of the infection. Soon? I'll probably be nothing but wolf. I have to do this now. NOW. Before I turn completely and become her god damn mate. If you get everyone out, you get the vaccine, and you come back to find me gone…DO IT. Do you understand? I would do it for you. This is our job. It's what we do. We fight, we kill, we DIE…and we keep fighting. There is no other choice. Surviving is how we honor the dead."

Honor the dead.

The guy who collected wallets to send home to waiting families.

The guy who sacrificed himself to save the world.

The guy who was trying to do it now to save Chris Redfield. So Chris could save the world. He was humble, handsome, hot eyes and heavy hands and laughter. He was the best she'd ever seen in the field. He was the only thing in the fucking world she wanted. And she loved him. She loved him like she'd die from it.

Didn't he get it?

"I get it, Leon. I get it. I know what we do. I KNOW it. You'll be ok. You'll be fine. You'll be DEAD. But what about me?"

He was so quiet behind her.

"What about me, Leon? What about ME?! What do I do when you're gone!? What do I do without you?! You burst into my life. You made me love you. You made me want you. You made me NEED you. And now what? You just want me to end you!?" She spun around and fisted his shirt in her hands. "Do you think I can? I'm not that strong!"

He caught her face now. "You're the strongest thing I've ever seen, Jill Valentine. So maybe this isn't our love story. Maybe not. Maybe it's our story of how we saved the girl."

"Is the girl Chris?"

"He is."

But she didn't laugh.

"That's a happy ending, Jill. Saving Chris saves the world. It's a good way to end it."

They held eyes. And finally, she whispered, "I won't make it without you. I won't survive it, Leon."

"You'll survive it, honey. You'll survive me. You're a survivor. It's what we do."

This kind of answer was more Leon Kennedy then he'd been in days. A selfless man, the kind who saved the day. The kind who pushed you against the door and took the bullet. The kind who walked into the den of the wolf to rescue the missing hero. The one who rolled you beneath him and took the talon in his body to save you.

The one stayed behind to die while you got to safety.

Was he still Leon Kennedy?

It would seem he'd never be anything else. And he was everything to her.

Her face collapsed. He watched it happen. If she cried, he'd stop being so fucking selfless. He couldn't FEEL anything for anyone but her anymore. He didn't even feel anything about himself. Mate, they called her, and she was. She was his mate. And that was all he knew.

But she didn't cry. She dragged him forward to kiss him. He hesitated, held back. "The teeth, Jill."

"Fuck the teeth. Kiss me."

Fuck the teeth. Kiss me. God damn he loved her. She was the probably the most amazing creature ever created. He kissed her. She slipped her tongue between those pointy teeth and didn't even nick herself once.

The kiss was desperate and rolling. Her hands jerked at his pants. He lifted his head to look at her. "Jill…"

"Please. I can't do this without you. I need you."

A dangerous thing to say to a man who was mostly wolf. He jerked up her dress. She gasped at the abruptness of it. Her hands echoed the move. She jerked open his pants.

He lifted her, effortlessly, and she wrapped her legs around him.

He put her against the wall and drove into her body. She was ready for him. She was willing. She was wet and needy and dying. The dress settled around their slapping bodies. She was keening in her throat with each desperate thrust of skin and sin and savoring hunger.

Leon put his face against her neck and breathed her in while he hammered her into the wall. Her body sucked him deeper; her cries urged him on. Her hands? They tried to shove the plunger into him.

He caught it an inch from his chest. And he didn't even stop fucking her while he held her hand out to the side to stop her. Jill was torn between coming, dying, and screaming in frustration. The bastard. The best she'd ever seen. Even in the throws of utter release, he was aware of the threat against him. All threats.

White hair, red eyes, fangs…holy god. And his body? It tried to drill through her and out the other side. Her free hand grabbed a handful of his hair; his slipped under that dress to fill itself full of her bare bottom. He tilted her, turned her, and fired into her body like he'd burst her flesh and break her bones with it.

The orgasm didn't arrive gently. It burst out of her mouth in a…howl? She howled. And bucked, bucked, boiling and burning alive for him. She lifted her mouth for a kiss. He gave it to her…and shoved the plunger into her neck.

No.

NO!

The drug cooled her blood. The drug put her back in her head. The drug…was gone. It was gone. And so was he. He was gone. Leon filled her up, gasping, groaning. Jill grabbed on and held on while he came, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting. They collapsed down the wall, gasping.

And she made a sound of loss.

"What have you done?"

"….Saved my mate."

She lay beneath the press of his body and held him. She held him. "Leon…please don't die on me."

"I'm gonna give it my best shot."

The door opened and Fenrir stood there, grinning. "YES! ALWAYS MATING! It is time!"

It was. It was time. It was time for it all. Leon eased her dress down and rose. He zipped himself up. Jill shivered, her thighs quivering with release. He took her hand…and faced the man in the door.

"Find Lillith. Tell her I have her answer."

Fenrir held his eyes. "What is your answer?"

"I will fight her."

"You cannot fight her," Fenrir laughed, "She is alpha. You can't fight her."

"Oh yeah?" Leon moved toward him. Fenrir held his ground. And when they were a foot apart, the other man grabbed for him. Leon let him grab his throat and lift him. He dangled in that big fist.

"I will kill you, little man." Fenrir was smirking happily at the idea.

Leon smiled as well, thrilled. "Put me down."

"I wi-"Fenrir twitched. He twitched and shifted. But he couldn't resist. That happened, it seemed. You couldn't resist the alpha. And maybe he wasn't Leon Kennedy anymore. And maybe he was.

But one thing he was sure of?

He was the alpha.

Fenrir put him down. And his eyes flashed anger and fear.

"Yeah. That's what alpha looks like, you dumb shit Neanderthal." Leon shoved the big man with all that infected strength. Probably three hundred pounds of muscle and he shoved him like he weighed nothing. Fenrir hit the far wall and slid down it, dazed.

"Get Lillith. Tell her to meet me in the pit. This ends now."

He turned back to Jill. "Get Chris. Get Carlos. Get Grace and get the hell out of here. Now."

"Leon…"

"Now Jill. NOW. They won't stop you now. I'm the alpha. They won't stop you. But I can't hold them if I lose to Lillith. Get to the top and get the cavalry. Show me what you got, kid. And save the day."

Jill watched him turn down the hallway. She raced after him. He moved like…like what? Like a predator. He moved like water. He moved like something amazing. Jill watched the wolves around him bow and scrape.

Oh god.

"Leon!"

He turned back, all red eyes and feral sex. "Jill."

"I love you."

He grinned at her and winked. She wanted to run after him and grab him and run away. Instead, she called, "If you're alpha….you can just…we can just leave right? We can just go."

"I can't Jill. I can't. She has to be stopped. You know that." He grabbed the closest bowing wolf from the floor and jerked them up. "Get Chris Redfield and the rest of our people. Let them out. Give them gear and send them to the surface. Do you understand me?"

"…yes. Yes. Yes." The little ferrety looking man was nodding. "Yes. I will."

Leon held him at eye level. "If anything happens to her. Anything. I will level this place and watch you all burn."

Terrified, the ferrety man kept nodding.

He tossed the ferrety man toward Jill. He scrambled and ran toward her. Jill looked at the back of the man she loved. She was so afraid. She was so enthralled by him.

He paused with his back to her still, and said, "I love you too, Jill. I think I knew that the moment you came out of that water."

Heartbroken, Jill whispered, "Me too. I need you."

"I don't plan on dying today. Get them out of here. Hurry." And he disappeared down the hallway.

The ferrety little man was tugging her hand down the other way. He hurried to the far cell and opened it. Carlos was sitting on the floor looking at them.

"Jill?"

"Get up. Hurry. We need to get Rebecca. We need the fucking cure. NOW."

The sounds of fighting filled the corridor. Oh god. OH GOD. The ferrety man opened the other cell and Chris emerged. Jill grabbed him and held on. He caught her face.

"Where is Leon?"

She shook her head. His bearded face was all sympathy. And she couldn't see it now. She couldn't. It would break her. "We have to hurry, Chris. We have to save him. Please. Please."

"Come on." They ran.

They ran toward the only hope they had left. They had to get to the cure. They had to hurry. If Leon won, they had to cure him. Maybe curing him would cure the pack. If he lost…

No.

She couldn't even stand to think it. She couldn't. She'd die. She'd die there on the floor in a puddle of piss and blood and grief. They had to hurry.

They were out of time.

And the sounds of fighting chased them down the hallway like a nightmare.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 15: The Price of Power

The pit was filled with nothing human.

It was faces and fire and blood.

The world made no sense.

He'd once stood on a beach looking for answers. He'd been looking for a reason. A purpose. An answer.

And Jill Valentine had come out of the water like a siren.

He stood now in the pit, in the hollowed out graveyard of the place Claire Redfield had fought against the Ashfords for her life, and he faced down the woman they'd left behind in their legacy of fear.

Lillith eyed him, pacing like a...wolf. "You can't win."

"Can't I? Alpha, Lillith, it's what you wanted. It's just not how you wanted it to find you. Enough games. Finish it."

She rushed him. He watched her with a predator's senses. He watched her like he was no longer Leon Kennedy. And maybe he wasn't. Maybe he hadn't been since Jill had risen from the ocean to love him.

Maybe he'd never be again.

But he knew he'd die here and now to save her.

Like she'd saved him the moment she'd walked into his life.  
.........

"HURRY!"

Jill paced in full gear, shaking with it, dying with it, nearly crying with it.

Rebecca watched her, eyes hooded, "I can't synthesize it any faster Jill. We know it works. The test sample cured you. We know it works. Just breathe. BREATHE."

"I can't!" She roared it while the team assembled behind her, ready it seemed, to ride to the rescue, "Don't you understand that!? He's down there DYING! I won't leave him there. I won't bury him. I NEED THAT CURE! We're out of time, Rebecca!"

Quint eyed Jill, looking nervous, "Even if he wins, Jill, you said that means he owns the pack."

"...shut up, Quint."

"...it means he's the alpha. It means the pack exists as long as he does, Jill. You know what that means."

"I SAID SHUT UP, QUINT!" She swung at him and Chris stepped between them, intercepting her arm. He caught her and shoved her back, shaking her by the vest.

"ENOUGH, Jill! Enough. Enough."He tugged her in to hug her. "Enough."

She grabbed his big back, so hard it hurt him and he let her. He let her. Because he could almost smell her fear. She whispered, "I can't do it, Chris. I can't do it. I can't."

"...I know that. I know it." He turned her face up to him. He held her chin. "I can, Jill. I can do that for him. He goes down down there protecting you, it's the least I can do for him. Let me. And live with yourself."

She shook her head and he watched her eyes fill with tears. "Don't you get it, Chris? I don't want to live with myself. I want to live with him."

Behind them, Rebecca breathed, "...it's ready. It's ready."

Jill put the Sumbitch into Chris' hand. He held her eyes for a long moment.

And Quint held out the single bullet to him. "One shot, boss. That's it. Make it count."

Chris took it, arm around Jill, eyes on the bullet. "Haven't we met, Quint? I'm the guy who never misses."

Rebecca answered, softly, "You're not betting your life on that, Captain. But you're betting Leon Kennedy's. I hope you're as good as you think you are."

From behind, a quietly amused voice, "If he isn't, I am."

Rebecca and Ada eyed each other, with interest.

And Rebecca said, "Are you? I wonder."

"I'm better." She twirled the sword in her hands and impressed Quint with the skill of it as she said, "What are we waiting for? Let's go save the girl."

Chris couldn't help it. Leon Kennedy was a damsel in distress it seemed.

He just laughed - but even that one sound rang hollow.  
.........

All the power in the world couldn't make someone a better fighter.

Lillith came at him. She was power and energy and speed. It didn't matter. In her haste to make him her partner, she'd made him her rival. And she'd never, ever, seen him move.

She didn't know what he could do.

She'd never stood in a long hallway in a highschool and watched him fight.

She didn't understand that sometimes when you sought the perfect warrior, you courted the perfect death. He caught her as she leaped for his throat like a wild thing. He tilted his head at her almost like the dog she wanted him to be.

She tried to fight him like an animal and although he might be the start of one, he was still Leon Kennedy. He was still better. He was still the best in his field. It would take more than a dog to kill him.

She grabbed for his face. His hands curled around her throat and jaw. This simple? He went to break her neck and the movement to his left had him throwing her away instead.

He turned and Fenrir tackled him.

Lillith shouted as she rolled to her feet, "NO!"

Leon stuck his feet down and kept his feet. They skidded through the dirt. The big man with all the muscles, the thin one with all the skills, the woman who wanted to win so badly it would get her killed.

Fenrir roared like a wolf. He howled. He jerked Leon up and shook him like a golem.

Leon rolled in his hand, he threw his body back and looped his arms around the big man's neck. The momentum kept him going until he anchored his weight, jerked, and snapped the other man out by his neck like a rubber band.

Fenrir flew like he'd been tossed by a careless hand. He hit the column and rocked it with a thunderous burst of sound. Lillith raced at them. Leon ducked a hook, a sharp slash of claws, and swept his feet away. Fenrir staggered, he went to one knee.

Lillith dove for them like the beast she was, snarling, and Leon back flipped, effortlessly, and kicked her out of the air like it was nothing.

She went up, she went over, and she collapsed on her table with a crash of destruction.

Fenrir charged from all fours like a bull. Leon waited, feinted right, and rolled across his back like it was nothing. The big man reversed, throwing dust and mud in a splatter of revenge, and raced for him again. Leon rolled over him again, too easily, and helped him along this time.

He grabbed his torn shirt and threw him out on his belly. Fenrir skidded, face down, over the ground.

He rolled to his back.

Lillith roared in rage and ran for them.

And Leon tilted his head, "Think she'll make it?"

Fenrir answered him, quietly, "Kill me, and she'll never let you go."

"Don't you get it, asshole, that ship has sailed. First you, then her."

"You don't have the guts."

"I warned you. I warned you once. You should have listened." He shifted.

Fenrir jerked.

Lillith screamed.

The crunch and squelch of bone and blood was horrible. She fell to her knees, shrieking, tearing at her hair.

It didn't matter.

She'd given him the strength to destroy her world. He did so in a shower of blood. He ripped the heart from his fallen opponent from the shattered cavity of his chest. Fenrir blinked, his mouth opened and closed like a landed fish, and Leon tossed away the still pulsing muscle to the blood soaked ground beneath them.

Covered in his blood, Leon turned back to the woman on the ground. He walked toward her and she stayed on her knees looking at him.

His hands caught her face where she knelt, defeated, even though she was still alive.

He watched her eyes and said, "You loved him once. You loved him. He was your mate. Maybe not your alpha. But your mate. I can smell it on you. Why didn't you just give it all up for him? Why stay here...building this den of monsters?"

Lillith shook her head, shaking with it. Tears coursed wetly down her bruised and bloody face. "...the pack is all that matters. I was the only alpha. I needed another one to hold it. Otherwise? The pack would become unstable. The pack would become a nightmare. It needs an alpha...to hold it together."

He studied her again and felt nothing. He searched in himself for anything at all. It was void. It was empty. No sympathy. No rage. No hunger. Just...white noise. Peaceful. Was that what it meant to be wolf? Utter and complete ambivalence. Kill you or let you run, your choice.

"It has one." He held her eyes, "I made you a promise once. I keep my promises."

Lillith started to shake. But she kept her gaze on his, unwavering, "End it."

He snapped her neck in a single swift move.

From the side of the ring, a shout, "NO!"

The BSAA was there.

The good guys had arrived.

He heard the shooting beyond the ring. He turned, swift and predatory. The moment Lillith had died, he'd felt the world fracture and roll around him. He had one purpose now. One.

To protect the pack.

Jill grabbed for him and he simply shoved her away to fall on her butt in the ring.

He moved beyond the doors to find the bullets peppering his people.

To find the humans slaughtering his pack.

He shouted, so loud it scared those who stood huddled and who tried to fight, "ENOUGH! SUBMIT!"

The pack...stopped. They dropped where the stood. They fell to their knees and obeyed.

The BSAA didn't. They kept on shooting.

He grabbed the first firing gun and jerked it clear of the hands that held it. He pistol whipped the face of the soldier and turned the gun on the second who turned toward him. A buttstroke to the gut and Leon kicked him over as he reeled. The third one shouted, "What the fuck!?"

And swung his gun at Leon in horror.

Leon slapped him upside the head, jerked him forward by his gun, and kicked him in the crotch as he divested him of the rifle.

"Kennedy!"

He spun, the rifle raised on the yelling voice. Redfield stood there facing him. Two heroes, two barrels, too little time.

Chris spoke, soft, but commanding, "Drop it. Please."

"Tell them to stand down. It's done. She's dead. If they keep killing my pack, I will destroy you all."

Redfield tilted his head, "You're not pack, god damnit, you're not a wolf. Drop the fucking gun and let me fix you."

"Too late. I don't need fixing. Take your men and leave. Or I'll turn you all and watch you become mine."

Jesus.

Jill spoke, slightly behind Chris, "Stop it. STOP IT! Listen to yourself! Who are you!?"

Leon tilted his head, scenting her. He shook his head like a dog, denying her. "I'm alpha."

"No!" She shoved around Chris. He tried to stop her but she grabbed the barrel of the gun Leon held and jerked, yanking it from his hands. He let her have it. It didn't matter. He didn't need it to kill them. They both knew it. She jerked him forward by his shirt and kissed him.

He scented her again while she pushed at his mouth. Like a statue, he stood in her arms and refused her. She leaned back, shaking. "You're Leon Kennedy. Say it. Mean it. Say it back to me."

He let go of her, pushing her away. "Not anymore. And you're not pack. You're not welcome here. Take your men and leave. Now."

She slapped his face and he let her, sniffing at her a little. "You're Leon Kennedy. You're not an animal. Leon Scott Kennedy. The Executioner. The Ghost. The best I've ever seen. And you're mine. MINE. Not hers. Not this fucking packs. MINE. Come back to me. Stop being stupid. You can fight anything. FIGHT THIS. And come back to me."

He grabbed her fast, sharp. He picked her up to let her feet dangle with his hands looped around her arms. "...you rejected your gift. You are no longer mate. You are nothing to me. Take your men and go. I will not allow you any more leniency."

She spit in his face.

It slid wetly down his chin.

And something like a horrible growl slid out of his throat.

His fingers...shifted. She felt the bones pop. She felt the fingers elongate. His hands were turning into claws.

There was a soft sound and there was Ada with the sword pointed at his belly, "Put her down, you ignorant mutt, or I'll spill your guts all over the ground."

Leon tilted his head, scenting Ada, "...alpha."

Ada laughed, eyes snapping, "Not for you, you mongrel. Not anymore. Set her down. Now."

Jill whispered, shaking in his grip, "...Chris?"

Chris spoke, loudly now, startling Leon enough to turn his head, "Never much liked you Kennedy. But I wouldn't have wanted it go like this. Ever."

Leon set Jill down. He turned.

And Chris shot him in the chest.

No hesitation.

No second thoughts.

Jill grabbed Leon as he fell backward. She let out of a small sound of pain, of grief, and collapsed to her knees holding him.

His hands clamped over his chest. The blood pumped wet and red and sticky around his fingers. He blinked twice. And she whispered, "You idiot. You stupid, brave, idiotic, dumb ass. I love you."

He went into the dark confused.

But still...not afraid. The wolf isn't afraid of death after all.

And he wasn't Leon Kennedy anymore.  
..........

It was warm.

He shifted, rolling on the cot in the hut in Sri Lanka. She leaned over him, smiling softly. "Who are you?"

And he said, "Leon Kennedy."

No lying.

No lies at all.

Just her and him and the truth.

Her voice in the dark now, in the swirl, "Please! Don't! Don't! You asshole! Don't you die on me!"

His hands flailing. His hands grabbing on to something. Again, her voice, "He's still here! He's here! Hold him down!"

Pain. He was screaming. He was dying.

He was flying in the dark like a bullet. It was warm. It wanted to embrace him.

He kicked it in the face and denied it. He shouted into the storm of it, "I'm too strong for you, you mother fucker!"

The dark ate the world again and made a liar out of him.

He'd been seeing it all his life. It taunted. It left him breathless. It took him down and ate his face.

It was cold.

He blinked in the dark as it crept up his pants.

"Please," Who was he asking? Who was he speaking to? No one. Everyone. ANYONE. "Not yet."

And the darkness echoed back, shrieking.

He shouted it now, into the maw, "NO! NOT YET! YOU HEAR ME!? NOT YET!"  
.............  
He came awake fighting.

There was a clunk of sound. He was floating in liquid.

Rebecca Chambers stood outside the tank, watching him, "Welcome back, Mr. Kennedy. It's good to see your eyes. I've seen alot of your body lately, and it's a nice show, but I missed the eyes. Nod if you understand me."

He nodded, feeling the respirator in his mouth.

"Good. Good. How do you feel? Nod once for me if you feel like Leon Kennedy. Twice if you're confused or don't feel like yourself. Or don't nod at all and growl if you're still a dog."

He tried to laugh around the respirator. Instead, he nodded once.

Rebecca hit the button on the tank.

It hissed. The respirator popped out of his mouth. A whir of sound filled his ears and the bottom of the tank opened. It sucked him down like a vacuum. He was shot into a chute with a grunt and dumped on the other side into another pool of liquid. Good old fashioend water this time. He sank into the warmth and floated, feeling his arms and legs and feet.

He swam up, popping free with a gasp of breath.

Leon swam to the edge of the pool and hoisted himself out. He slapped at his legs and his arms and his face, feeling for...what?

Fur?

Yeah, fur.

FUR. Exactly.

The door behind him opened and Rebecca emerged, holding a towel. She knelt beside him and draped it over his neck. "You scared us, Mr. Kennedy. Quite a bit. Your heart stopped three times in the last few weeks. Trying to die on us?"

No.

The darkness kept trying to get him though.

It kept losing.

It had lost all his life.

Apparently, he wasn't done fighting.

He said, voice hoarse, "...The Sumbitch worked."

"It did. Now Quint is impossible to live with, FYI. All bragging and crowing. Impossible."

He smiled, he laughed a little, "...Rebecca, thank you. Jill?"

Rebecca smiled and touched his shoulder, "I'll send for her."

She rose. She moved to the door and was gone.

He lingered on the edge of the pool, watching the gentle swirl of the water. He couldn't remember anything. He knew he'd sent Jill away. He knew he'd defeated Lillith. The moment she'd died, something had broken in him.

What?

The surge of power that meant alpha, clearly. It had done more than strip away his identity. It had stolen his humanity. In the aftermath of it, he had sympathy for all of them. Had any of them made it?

The door opened and a small girl emerged. She was young, blonde, and clutching her hands. She moved forward, looking nervous.

He tilted his head, watching her.

And she spoke, softly, "I'm Grace."

He jerked with surprise. Grace.

GRACE.

She crouched. She touched his face. She was lovely, maybe fifteen, and smiling.

Her voice was smooth and gentle. Her eyes full of a thousand things she wouldn't say. She said, "...thank you. For everything. I knew you'd save us. The second I saw you, I knew you were the alpha she'd been seeking. But there was something on you she couldn't understand."

Leon watched her eyes, looking for answers, "...what?"

"Kindness. Purity. Love. You are full of them. And wolves aren't made that way. They are animals, Leon Kennedy. They function on basic needs. There's no love in a pack. Love killed her. Love kept you alive. Love saved you. You were alpha...but you were never a wolf."

She rose as the door opened again and Jill entered in a little white t-shirt and jeans. Grace touched his face again.

She smiled and turned away.

Jill hugged her as she passed and Grace closed the door quietly.

Leon slid his toes in the water, swinging his legs absently. He spoke, voice cracking, "...so...I think I tried to kill you."

Jill said nothing.

He shook his head, watching the water, "I think I failed you. And you saved my worthless ass anyway. Some hero huh?"

Again, nothing.

He turned a little and she kicked him into the water.

Right from the hip, she kicked him in the back and sent him face first in the water.

He went under. He came up sputtering. And she shoved him into the wall of the pool and stole his breath.

Her hands grabbed fistfuls of his hair and anchored him there while they treaded water. The little white shirt was completely soaked and totally, wonderfully, see through.

She hissed, sharply, "I told you not to die on me, you fucking asshole."

He grunted, letting her slam him into the wall again. And he answered, softly, "Shove me again, I can see your tits through your shirt."

Jill gave him narrow eyes. He stayed dead pan.

A moment passed.

And she cursed him in three languages. He laughed and she put her tongue in his mouth.

His hands grabbed for her jeans. Hers made short work of the boxers on his hips. She mounted him in the water. He tried to get his hands under the top to palm her breasts.

It was rough. It was angry.

It was good.

And desperate.

She rode him like a racehorse, nearly killing him with the greed of it. He tried to hold on, gave up, and grabbed her hips to drive her harder onto him.

Feral.

It was. Animals indeed. She fucked him like one, grunting and grabbing his face to eat him. He walked her to the shallow end of the water, found his footing, and threw her against the wall to brace her for the hammer of his body.

She came apart, jerking and dying.

He was close, on the edge, grunting and fucking her like a rutting beast.

And she grabbed his face, "Wait! WAIT!"

Was she kidding!?

But he stopped, shaking, panting.

She was trembling, she was clenched around his cock like a sucking mouth, they were both dying where they floated and merged, mated like two wild things.

And she whispered, "I took out my IUD."

He tried to make sense of it. He did. It made sense? It -what? What was she saying?

She wiggled on his lap and made him hump into her. It made her cry out and she grabbed his face, "Kennedy! Focus! Listen to me...can you hear me?"

He stopped, he breathed, he tried to focus. "Yeah? Yeah. What did you say?"

"I took out my IUD."

He trembled. They held eyes. And he asked, hoarsely, "You want me to put a baby in your belly, Jill Valentine?"

She laughed, high and loud, "Yeah. Yeah I do. Think you're man enough?"

"Let's find out. Hold on, sweetheart."

He plowed her so hard it made her scream. She bucked. She was done in two thrusts. He was done in four. He filled her up like a bitch in heat.

No.

He filled her up like a woman trying to make a baby with the man she loved.

For just a moment, he was nothing more than a boy on a beach with a girl who changed his whole life.

And had somehow, someway, become his whole world.

Mate, he thought, as he held her in his arms and turned her face to his mouth to kiss her. Mate indeed.

Check mate?

No.

Soul mate.  
.................................. 

Post Note: Who says I can't finish a story!? BOOM! Good ending. Happy. I'm ending my stuff happy lately. WOOOT! I wish it wouldn't have taken me so long but I LOVE this story. Thank you for coming with me on it. It was fun to write, fun to research. Hard to finish, clearly, but that's because my brain is always busy. I love all my readers. I love every one of you. Weirdo shippers unite!


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